


i wanna reach out for you (i wanna break these walls)

by g_uttertrash



Series: domestic monsters [4]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Light Angst, M/M, Magic, Magic-Users, Monsters, Siren, Vampires, Witches, but i hope the end makes up for it, i tried to stop the angst train but i'm a terrible conductor i'm sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-15
Updated: 2015-06-22
Packaged: 2018-04-04 12:38:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 31,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4137879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/g_uttertrash/pseuds/g_uttertrash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The wolf's out of the bag, the witch is out of the broom closet, the siren's out of the ocean, and the vampire's out of the...coffin? Everybody knows about everybody now, but it's not always so easy, rooming with the supernatural. </p><p>(the household shifts and changes, Detective Harry is on the case again, and Louis has to come to terms with who he wants to be.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. who we are

**Author's Note:**

> okay. so i'm sorry if this one is angsty but like. i'm trash. this is another chaptered one, there will be two so make sure you read them both when the second one's up! a special thank you to my darling leni who provided much of the insight and inspiration for this chapter <3
> 
> i made a playlist~ for these which you can listen to on 8tracks [here](http://8tracks.com/g-uttertrash/domestic-monsters) if you are so inclined. also just wanted to say, i really love and appreciate all the comments on these and everyone who takes the time to read, you're sweet :)
> 
> this whole idea is based loosely on [this](http://moniquill.tumblr.com/post/66494076079/necrotype-domestic-monsters-the-witch) tumblr post and the title is from, of course, one direction's "diana".

The clock in the sitting room goes off twelve times for noon, but all the curtains are pulled tightly shut, making it look dark as night. There’s a globe of light floating over their heads that has Harry staring up at it, biting his lip unsurely. It’s just so weird to have his magic out now, in the _open_. He’s officially out of the broom closet.

He thought it would feel better than this. Mostly, it’s just confusing.

It was decided they were going to have a family meeting in the sitting room upon Louis’ declarations and everyone agreed, congregating down below after Zayn had pulled on a pair of pants and a DC Comics t-shirt. He and Niall were sat on opposite ends of the musty old couch, Louis in one of the overstuffed armchairs.

That was fifteen minutes ago.

Louis looks around. There are dark circles under his eyes; he’s up far past his usual bedtime. “So is anyone going to say anything?”

Harry glances around. While everyone else sits, he’s…well, he’s floating. Cross-legged in mid-air. Niall can’t stop staring.

They all shift and shrug, mumbling nondescriptly. Louis rolls his eyes.

“All right, look, lads. We have to talk this out at some point. We should’ve done it earlier, but we didn’t, and we’re here now. So somebody’s got to make the first step.”

Niall points at Louis. “Well, what about you, then?”

Louis scowls, about to open his mouth, but it’s Harry who speaks instead. “Me,” he says suddenly.

They all turn to look at him. They wait.

Harry blushes.  “Um, what should I say?”

“Who you are.” Louis’ eyes seem to flash in the dimness and Harry suppresses a shiver. “ _What_ you are.”

Harry can’t help but think of that terrible movie _Twilight_ and a round of hysterical giggles begins to claw its way up his throat before he can stop it. This is _ridiculous._ He lets some of them out unwillingly and has to stuff half his fist in his mouth.

“Uh. Maybe someone else should go first.” Louis lets out a long-suffering sigh, trying his hardest not to smile in Harry’s direction. It’s comforting to know they aren’t _completely_ losing their minds, and can carry on like nothing new has happened, even though _everything_ has changed. “All right. Louis Tomlinson. I’m…a vampire.”

Harry looks around, at the looks of serenity and _not_ surprise on his friends faces. So Zayn _did_ know. The giggles abate almost instantly. “And that’s only news to _me_?”

Niall shrugs. “Known him a long time.”

“Zayn?”

He looks uncomfortable, as if he’s guilt-stricken at the idea of having kept something from Harry. “I knew, yeah. Sorry, Haz.”

“How?”

“Found a blood sweetie in one of his pockets when I was doing the wash.”

“That’s—” Niall starts, making a face.

Harry whips toward Louis. “Blood sweeties?” he squeaks.

“What are _you_?” Niall asks quickly, pointing at Zayn. “That’s what I really want to know, because you looked dead weird—”

“All _right_ ,” Louis says loudly, and they go quiet again. “If we’re going to do this, we’ve got to be _nice_ about it. No interrupting, and Niall, if you ask Zayn that one more time, I’m going to hit you with a pillow.”

Niall snorts at that. Harry claps a hand over his mouth again. A vampire just threatened to hit a werewolf with a _pillow_ in his _sitting room_. The giggles are rising again. At some point, he won’t be able to stop them.

“He’s not a _thing_ , he’s Zayn,” Louis continues. “And you know that. Got it?”

They all nod, little boys chastised by their headmaster.

Zayn smiles hesitantly at that, almost like he’s peeking out through in between his fingers. “So I guess I’ll go,” he says. He raises a hand like they’re in some kind of meeting for alcoholics. _Monsters Anonymous,_ Harry thinks. He swallows a squeak. “Right, Zayn Malik and uh, I’m a siren. Thanks to Louis, you already knew that.” He glances at Niall. “I can usually control the scales and gills, but you two surprised me, so…sorry to freak you out.”

 “You’re a—” Niall looks at him now, but with a sense of wonder. “That’s incredible, I didn’t know those—you—were real!”

Zayn’s lips quirk up. “There aren’t a lot of us left, mate. It’s no wonder.”

“Wow.” Niall looks at Harry. “And what about you?” He flaps his hands at the floating. “What’s all this and the—the glitter stuff earlier?”

“Me?” Harry waves a hand like a bored housewife. “Oh, that’s my magic. I’m just a witch.”

Louis coughs, choking on a breath, and Harry’s about to say something when Zayn cuts him off.

“Just? You’re not _just_ anything, you’re proper powerful.” He looks at Niall, pointing a thumb in Harry’s direction. “You know he can make potions and summon stuff? He can fly, too!”

Niall crows, almost bouncing in his seat now. Harry frowns at that, blushing to the tips of his hair. It’s not like he’s this rare creature like Zayn on the verge of being extinct. He’s exactly what he said, he’s just a witch. “Well, what about you? When you sing, you can hypnotize people, make them do whatever you want.”

“No shit,” Niall says, his voice hushed, eyes landing on Zayn. “Is that why you’d never come karaokeing with us?”

Zayn nods. “I don’t do that anymore. I’m…retired.”

Niall erupts into laughter. “A gay vampire, a guy witch, and a retired siren.”

“Oi—” Louis starts.

“ _‘Witch’_ isn’t a gendered term, it applies to anyone who has magic,” Harry says proudly.

“Yeah, you degenerate furball,” Louis says, snapping his fingers in Niall’s direction. “Stop gendering terms.”

Niall flips his middle finger up in Louis’ direction, and Louis moves like he’s going to leap across the room and go after him, but Harry snaps his fingers and a shimmery purple force-field springs up between them. Niall nearly faints from excitement.

“Yeah, hey, what about you?” Zayn asks, reaching over to poke Niall hard in the knee. “A werewolf? What’s all that about?”

Niall nods. “Yep. Niall Horan, werewolf. Proper term is lycanthrope, though. If you wanna be technical about it.”

Werewolf. Vampire. Something occurs to Harry then, and he frowns. “Wait.” Harry’s mind goes white as he remembers fake blood, a furry mask, and a coffin leaning against a wall in a haunted house. _Teeth. TEETH_. “When we met at the Halloween thing last year. You two…”

Niall bursts out laughing. Louis just nods, smiling. “The best disguise is honesty,” he says, shrugging. “All we did was tell the truth. Sort of.”

 Zayn nods. “Dressed up as life. Top form, lads.”

“Yeah,” Harry echoes, voice fainter. “Top form.”

Because it is, isn’t it? It’s the _most_ top form that Harry didn’t even notice, couldn’t have even noticed. They’re so clever, so much better at their disguises and their lives than both he and Zayn ever imagined. And it’s his fault, isn’t it, that he didn’t see? He was so enthralled by Louis, so distracted by their friendship and their new lives together, that he didn’t notice what was lurking right in front of him all along. _How could I have been so blind_ , he wonders. _How could I not have seen?_ Not even all the magic in all the world could have helped him.

_What’s the point of being a witch if I can’t even see what’s going on right in front of me?_

“So,” Louis says quietly, and Harry realizes they’ve been silent for a few moments. “Who’s going to give us their life story first?”

It’s Niall, because of course he can’t pass up an opportunity to talk about himself.

He’s old. Not Louis old, he immediately clarifies to an eye-roll from Louis, but pretty old. He was born in 1845, at the very start of _an Gorta Mór,_ the Great Famine of Ireland. His young life was met with misery and misfortune at seemingly every turn, and things didn’t exactly improve when, at age seventeen, starving and on the verge of death trying to provide for his family, he was attacked.

“Didn’t see much,” he says, shrugging. “It was big, dark. I thought it was a dog at first, or the one of the _sluagh_ , like the stories me mum used to tell. It bit me. I’d show you the scar but,” he shrugs, “werewolves have pretty good healing abilities so it’s gone.” He shakes his head. “Sometimes, I think I can still feel it, though.”

“Did you ever find out who did it?” Zayn asks.

Niall nods. “Well, that’s how I met Louis.”

“What? But he’s—”

Niall shrugs again. “’S not like we had the Internet back then, lads. I was going by word of mouth, stories I’d heard on the run. I managed to track down something I’d heard about that was biting people. Only, it wasn’t a werewolf, and then…” He laughs. “The world got a little bigger, eh, Lou?”

* * *

_  
October, 1865. London._

It was raining again, so at least there was _something_ to remind Niall of home.

Though that wasn’t exactly fair, was it? There was plenty to remind Niall of home. Like the rain, that was an awful lot like Ireland. And the small wages, that was reminiscent too. You did your hard work and you suffered for it, but it was better than nothing, aye? Just like the Queen said.

The starving—that was great, too. That was Niall’s favorite part of it all, actually. That _really_ reminded him of home. It was like he wasn’t really Irish unless his belly was rumbling.

The difference was in the signs.

Niall frowned at the third one in a row on a storefront window.  _HELP WANTED—NO IRISH NEED APPLY._ “Like yeh could even afford us,” he muttered, kicking at the ground. “Like you could even _beg_.”

But they wouldn’t have to. It was always the Irish that ended up begging, in the end.

He pulled his coat tighter around himself, turning up his collar against the chill. He jogged across the nearly-empty cobblestone street, ducking into a stoop. At the tavern down the street, they were playing raucous music filled with fiddles and pennywhistles, shouts echoing back and forth, the sound of bottles breaking rising high in the night. The smart thing to do would be to join them, to pretend he wasn’t hungry and virtually homeless and looking for some _creature_ he was probably never going to find.

He could hear loud, wet coughing coming from inside the tenement houses beside him and he wrinkled his nose. At least there was _one_ perk to being a werewolf—immunity to disease had saved him from a handful of terrible fates, not the least of which was the latest round of cholera a few years back. The _smell_ was the worst of it. Heightened senses in a seething city like London weren’t exactly the best accessory. He wanted to leave, to go back out to the country where there was fresh air and miles to run, but how could he? He needed _answers_.

There was a tapping from down the street and Niall turned his head, heart rate skittering into overdrive. Ever since he had been attacked three years earlier, he’d been jumpy at night. He’d never realized just how unsafe the world was until he’d been bowled over and _mauled_ , teeth and claws tearing at his skin, snapping his collarbone like it was nothing. He was so thin, so malnourished from starving; he should’ve died. But he didn’t. Instead, his body turned into something else. It came back to life, filled out. _Changed_.

But this time, there was nothing to worry about. It was just one of the lamplighters walking by, dragging their long torch along the street, the bottom of it _tap-tap-tapping_ in between each rough stone. Niall watched him reach up to light the last lamp on the street, the glass dome flickering to life, a lighthouse in the storm. He walked right past where Niall was hiding in the corner of the stoop and he never even once looked over. From down the street, a woman screamed with laughter and somebody retched loudly.

 _Ugh,_ Niall thought. _Whitechapel is the_ worst.

Sudden light flooded the stoop. “Oi, you.”

Niall threw up an arm, shielding his eyes. He was still getting used to those heightened senses, and bright lights were not something he was enthusiastic about, especially when his eyes reflected light now. Talk about getting used to things. “What?”

Two constables stood there in their fancy dark blue uniforms, one of them twirling a baton, the other holding a lantern. He could feel his hackles rising just looking at them.

“We’ve had reports of a suspicious character ’round these parts. Time for you to move along.”

“ _Move along?_ ” Niall gestured to the sky. “It’s pissing down, gents, where’m I supposed to go?”

“Bloody Christ,” one of them muttered. “Another bog-trotter.” He looked at Niall, holding the lantern up higher. “How’s about you just go home?”

“All the way back to Ireland, God be good,” the other said. They laughed.

Right, home. Nowadays that was a one-room squat with a door that was always open. Something like forty families lived in there at any given time. Not always at the same time, sure, but you noticed them all, from the clothes left behind, to the unwashed crockery and bandages, knives and baby nappies. It was suffocating. He could hardly stand to be there for more than sleep, and often times, there was hardly any room for that.

“Fine,” Niall said, spreading his arms out. “Toss me out into the rain. Not like it’s nothing I’ve never seen before.” He strolled down the steps of the stoop, walking off with as much bravado as he could muster. “Gobshites,” he murmured under his breath. 

Typical.

He headed back towards the neighborhood where he lived, past the loud pub, past an orphanage where he could hear children wailing loudly. It got quieter the further he got, but darker, the rain falling harder. There were fewer and fewer lamps, but he could see, eyes finding every shadow and turning it into streaks of silver light, into blacks and greys.

There were footsteps behind him, which was strange, because he hadn’t heard anybody before.

Niall glanced back. Nobody was there.

He opened his mouth, letting some scent creep in, inhaling deeply. There _was_ somebody there, but their scent was different. Wrong, somehow. It didn’t make any _sense_.

Niall stopped, half-turned, glancing around the alleyway. He stood stock-still, listening, watching, _waiting_. It felt like something was about to happen, something important. His heart was beating so fast he could nearly taste it, his mouth dry and metallic.

Just then, something slammed into him—something fast and _mean_. Hands gripped him hard, fingers pressing tightly into his skin. He squirmed, trying to break free, but they were stronger, much stronger than him. He felt something sharp go ripping into his neck at the same moment he was dragged to the ground, rain splattering into his eyes. All he could do was make a strangled sound, a helpless gurgle.

Suddenly, the form released him, leaping away from him. He fell to the ground and lay there, staring up at the sky. All he saw was darkness and rain. His throat was pulsing with pain, breath easing out of him. “I’m fine,” he said aloud, whispering.

He heard the snarling and spitting a moment later.

He sat up, woozily clutching at his neck. Blood was streaming through his fingers from a messy gash, but it would stop in a moment; his healing powers were quick, even when it wasn’t the full moon. He frowned, staring hard at the figure before him.

It was a man. Rather a…well, not _boy_ , though it was dressed similarly to one: Newsie hat, ill-fitting wool coat, buttons missing, trousers a little too long in the leg. As though he had robbed someone’s laundry hanging out to dry. That wasn’t the most curious thing, though. It was the _spitting_. He was spitting out Niall’s blood. He knew it wasn’t the most rational thought, but the first thing Niall felt was indignation. Talk about rude. 

“ _Ugh_ ,” the stranger said loudly, in a clear Northern accent. “ _Eurg_.” He stuck out his tongue and began wiping it on his sleeve, tilting his head back to let the rain wash it clean. “ _Agh_.”

“Uh. Excuse me?”

He turned. “ _Disgusting_ ,” he remarked, coughing, spitting again. Some of Niall’s blood was still clinging to his chin.

“Oi. That’s my blood you’re talking about there.” Shakily, Niall pulled himself to standing, leaning against the brick wall.

“Yes, and it’s _awful_.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, is _my blood_ not what you wanted?” Niall folded his arms over his chest. “You attacked me, mate. What’s your problem?”

The shorter man raised his eyebrows. “ _My_ problem? Honestly, what’s the matter with _you_?” he asked, looking Niall up and down. His eyes were a vivid blue-green. “Have you got the clap or something?”

“ _Oi,_ you—” Niall said, offended now. _The clap?_ As if he would. As if he _could!_ This fellow came out of nowhere, _attacked him_ , and then accused him of being some kind of filthy—well, dog. _Oh._ Suddenly, it made sense.

“Right,” Niall said, sniffing. “Well. Not that it’s any of _your_ business, it’s—well, a condition.”

“A condition,” the stranger said flatly. “Right. You’re a bloody werewolf is what you are. I’ve tasted _that_ particular bile before, and it was no picnic the first time either, let me tell you—”

“Hang on, are you…” Niall’s eyes crossed. He thought of what the coppers said about a suspicious character, and the reports _he_ heard through some of the packless grapevine about some creature attacking people down in London. He thought it was the person who had attacked him back in Ireland, hoping to make easy prey of the immigrants, maybe even sneaking over the ocean among them with nobody the wiser. He never thought that…

“You’re a vampire, aren’t you?”

The stranger stood at their full height, rolling his eyes. “What gave it away?”

“So what, you just run around picking on the poor Irish garbage around here, poor sods like me?”

He at least had the grace to look taken aback. “What? No. Didn’t even know you were Irish till you spoke, did I? And I don’t kill people. I barely even hurt them, I just take enough to move on. Usually I do it to the homeless, they…” He shrugged, looking almost embarrassed. “Usually they don’t mind if I pay them.”

 “You… Hang on, isn’t that a bit like blood prostitution?”

He smirks. “Something like that. But it’s a scenario where everyone stands to gain, so why not? What else am I supposed to do, really?” Deciding Niall wasn’t prey after all, he extended a hand. “Louis Tomlinson, late of Yorkshire. Was there for a couple hundred years and the accent stuck."

“How old are you?”

“That’s a sensationally scandalous thing to ask someone you’ve just met,” Louis remarked mildly, his eyes glimmering.

“Says the _feisí_ who just attacked me!”

He held his hands up. “All right, settle it down there, eh? It was an honest mistake. ’s not like you were wearing a sign that says WEREWOLF, you know? No need to hold a grudge. And it’s not like you haven’t done things to survive as well.” Louis’ eyes gleamed as the rain dripped steadily onto his hat. “Or do you just hold it in every full moon, keeping a tight leash on it until it hurts and you lose control, and hope you don’t accidentally kill someone when you black out?”

Niall stared at him. _How did he know?_ Because Niall didn’t _want_ to be a werewolf, he never had. It wasn't something he’d been given, it was something he _got_ , something that was forced on him that changed him irreparably. And he didn’t want any part of it: He didn’t want the heightened senses, the perks, if it meant he has to change every month, to go through that bone-breaking, organ-shifting _agony_ , and experience that hunger and desire and _wildness_. It was too much.

“I…I didn’t want to be made this way. I didn’t ask for this to happen.” He wasn't even sure he said something until he saw Louis’ reaction; it was a visceral flinch, like he'd just slapped him. “I don’t want to be this…animal. This _monster_.”

Louis stared at Niall, as if he was only just seeing him for the first time. “Me neither, mate,” he finally said. “But it’s who you are now. And it’s better to roll with that than to keep punishing yourself. You can change, you know? Look at me!” He held his arms out wide. Niall must have made some kind of disbelieving face because Louis snorted with laughter and nodded. “Yeah, all right, I’m not _much_ to look at right now, but I don’t kill people, not anymore. I could give in to all that shit, but I don’t. I’m different.”

“Why?”

Some tiny emotion passed over Louis’ face. If he wasn’t a werewolf, Niall thought he’d probably never have even seen it. “Someone told me the same things I’m telling you now when I thought I was horrible. They believed in me, and it turned out to be the only thing I needed.”

Louis stepped closer and Niall resisted the urge to pull away from him. “You’re an animal now, yeah. But _you’re_ not the monster. The person who made you, _they_ are. They’re the one who couldn’t control themselves, who thought it better to ruin someone else’s life than fix their own. You don’t have to be that. I can…I can help you.”

“How?” Niall croaked. His throat hurt.

“Well, for starters, I could give you at least _someone_ to trust. Someone to help you through the changes. How many have you held in now?”

Niall’s hands were shaking. “Two. Last time…” _Last time I almost did something terrible._

Louis nodded like he knew. And in a weird way, he kind of did.

Niall could do something right now. He could do _something_ right now, something important and crazy and life-changing. He could do that, just by taking Louis’ hand. Just by trusting him, by letting him in, by letting someone finally _see_ him and know him for who what he truly was. Even though they just met, even though Louis could kill him without so much as a second thought, even though it was unreasonable and without a rational explanation.

 _But he knows me. I can tell._ And why shouldn’t he? _Freaks of a feather_ , Niall thought. And wouldn’t it be better for them to band together now of all times? Because he needed help. He was drowning, head barely held up above water. He needed someone who knew what they’re doing, what kind of world they were going up against, what kind of _hunger_ pulled at the blood like his. And who better than a vampire?

As if Louis could read Niall’s mind—and maybe he can, Niall’s not sure, he’s only met one other vampire—Louis said, “Sorry I attacked you. I genuinely didn’t know. I’m close to working out a deal with a butcher, but I don’t like to stay in one place for too long.” He looked away, biting his lip. “People tend to get hurt. And not by me.”

Niall nodded. That was why he left home in the first place. He didn’t even know if his family was still alive, much less safe; his stomach turned unpleasantly at the thought, a tightness gripping his chest.

Slowly, Niall held out a hand. “Niall Horan. Late of County Westmeath.”

Louis grinned. “Nice to meet you, Niall Horan." He paused for a moment. "You wouldn’t need a place to live by any chance, would you? Safety guaranteed—it turns out you’re not my blood type.”

Slowly, Niall smiled back.

* * *

“You must taste proper awful, then,” Zayn says, wrinkling his nose. Niall reaches over to grab him, but Harry interrupts them, throwing a ball of energy at them that bursts into rainbow rays of light; they break apart, laughing, as the light casts their skin in iridescent shapes. In the chair, Louis is barely awake, eyes heavy, every other motion from him a yawn.

“So that was it, then?” Harry asks, mostly to keep Louis awake, but also out of curiosity. “You’ve been together since then?”

Niall laughs, shaking his head. “Nah. We lived together for a while in London, but we left during that whole Jack the Ripper thing. Just didn’t feel safe after that, and I was sick of the city. So I went to Wales for a while, found the guy who'd changed me—what a prick—and Louis—”

“—haunted the Scottish highlands for a while,” Louis says thickly, shifting in his chair. He’s curled up like a cat and Harry can’t stop looking at him. “Tried out solitude again. Got bored. Decided to visit Ireland, to see what Niall would never shut up about. Met a bloke, Stoker something or other, told him some stories. He wrote a book about them, it wasn’t very good. Got bored again. Went back to London.”

“Wait. You…you met Bram Stoker? Like _the_ Bram Stoker?” Zayn asks, eyes wide. “ _You_ helped him write _Dracula_?”

Louis nods sleepily, a little frown on his face. “My version was better, though.”

Zayn practically levitates off the couch himself. “ _Your_ version—”

“Anyway,” Niall says, rolling his eyes. “I stayed in Wales for a long time, but people started noticing that I wasn’t aging as fast as everyone else. So I eventually went back to London in…what was that, Lou, the 20s?”

“Mm. Not quite, we hadn’t gone to war yet.”

Harry’s head is spinning. War. As in, World War I, the Great War, the first of the modern and most terrible that encompassed entire _nations_. And they were part of it. They were _there_.

“How old are you, exactly?” Harry asks quietly.

“Erm. Let’s see…” Niall does the math in his head. After a significant moment, he says, “168. I’ll be 169 in September.”

 _One hundred and sixty-eight. Almost two centuries._ Harry really is the youngest of the group, in a way that’s much more pronounced now, as it seems he’s the only one who was born during the twentieth century. What a child he is, next to these monster _adults_. 21 versus 168 is _quite_ a significant difference. But if Niall is that old and is always making jabs at Louis’ age… _then how old is_ he _?_

He doesn’t realize how much this has affected him until his hovering falters and he almost goes crashing to the floor. He catches himself at the last moment, glancing around. Niall and Zayn are talking about the 1800s and Harry lets out a breath, glad that nobody noticed. 

Well. Almost nobody.

Louis raises a single eyebrow at Harry from his chair across the room. He smirks slowly when he meets Harry’s gaze, and Harry blushes. It turns his fingernails a vibrant neon pink. Louis laughs. 

“So what all can you do, then?” Zayn asks. “Like, what’s the rules about werewolves and all that?”

Niall is admirably patient with them when they bring up silver and moonlight and all the folklore they’ve been fed as children.

“Right, here’s how it works. Silver? Burns like a motherfucker, a high enough dose can kill me. It’s like touching something hot, y’know? Wolfsbane’s poison too, but no more to me than you all. If you brew it up right into tea or something, you can actually make me a bit calmer during the time. Supposedly. I’ve never met anyone who can do it right.”

“Like comfrey?” Harry asks.

“Erm. I guess?”

Harry rolls his eyes good-naturedly, smiling. “Comfrey’s a plant. It’s used pretty widely for medicinal purposes—I make a salve of it and use it a lot on the animals at the vet, if they’ve got cuts and stuff. It’s a wonder for pretty much anything, as long as it’s on your outside. If you swallow it, it’s poisonous.”

“Oh! Well, yeah. Like that, then.”

“What does that mean, though? That bit about being calmer?” Harry asks.

“The week of the full moon, I’m…” Niall glances at Louis. “How did you describe it?”

“Snappish to the point where it’s almost too tempting to put you down,” Louis replies thickly from his place in his chair, only the tufts of his hair visible. “Or, at least muzzle you.”

“Yep. I’m not too nice. Sets me on edge. Hunter’s mentality and all that. Louis gets it and…probably you, too, Zayn.”

Zayn nods, expression pained. Harry realizes just then that he’s literally sitting in a den of predators. How strange that they’re all the people in the world who mean the most to him, with the exception of his family. He thinks of that Time in the kitchen with Louis, of the way he stared at him while licking blood from his hand. _That_ suddenly makes sense now, and the hysterical giggles threaten to overwhelm him again. He has to cough several times and even after he does, his chest still aches from holding it all in. _Well, let it never be said that I don’t like to live dangerously._

Niall’s still talking, and Harry brings his focus back into the conversation. “And well, I guess it comes down to that the three days of the full moon, I’m a mess. So. Sorry if I bite anyone’s head off.” Louis snorts and Zayn rolls his eyes while Niall grins. “That’s the last of the werewolf humor, I promise.”

A little light flicks on in Harry’s head. “So that _was_ you I saw out in the woods,” he says almost accusingly.

Niall’s grin vanishes immediately. “Yeah. I’m so sorry about that, by the way. I tried to make it up to you and apologize without saying anything, but—”

“ _Oh_ ,” Zayn says, the realization hitting him all at once. “So that’s why you were proper gay for him last week?”

“Oi,” Louis mumbles, lifting one dainty hand to protest at their usage of terminology, before he’s quiet again.

“Yeah. I’m really sorry, Haz, I didn’t—I wasn’t coming _after_ you, I was excited to see you! It’s been a long time, but uh…” He rubs at the back of his neck, looking down at the floor. “Sometimes I still forget? When I’m a wolf? So…”

“You were…what, running over for me to _pet_ you?”

Niall laughs at that, loud and long. “I guess, yeah. It might not’ve worked, though. Like I said, I’m a right cunt during the full moon. Anything can set me off, so it was probably for the best that you…y’know.”

“Ran screaming for my life?”

“Yeah, that.”

“It’s fine, I rescued you,” Louis mumbles. Harry nods, blushing again. If he doesn’t settle down with all this magic, he’s going to finish the afternoon with a face full of shimmery makeup, pink curls, and a full mani/pedi to boot. Not that he’s complaining. He’s just not sure he’s ready for Louis to know the effect he has on him and his magic just yet—and the other lads. Though, at this point, it’s looking like the only person who doesn’t know is Niall, which, if Harry really considers it, is pretty typical.

“So what else?” Zayn asks, turning back to Niall. “Can you explain what happens to you? Like, physiologically?”

“Christ, what a word,” Niall mutters. “Erm. Well. My stuff on the inside…rearranges itself? Into a wolf shape. And I go running.”

He says that last bit like it’s just a hobby of his, like he’s laying out his exercise routine for them. “What does that mean, rearranges itself?” Harry asks. He _does_ work at a vet’s office, after all, and he feels like if anyone would know anything about this, it’d be him.

Niall suddenly seems embarrassed. “It means that my…my _stuff_ changes, Harry, I don’t know how else to put it other than that.”

“You mean like your bones?” Zayn asks.

Niall shifts away from him on the sofa, folding his arms over his chest, and Harry can tell how uncomfortable this is making him. His aura has turned murky for the first time since Harry’s known him, a deep green ringed in black, wavering like he’s trembling.

Harry jumps in before Niall can answer. “I have a quick question.”

“Yeah?”

“You mentioned in your story of when you met Louis that…something happens to you if you…I dunno, hold it in?” Niall nods. “What’s all that about?”

“Well, basically the full moon lasts three days, yeah? So I have three days to change. The first and last day aren’t so bad. It’s the middle day, that one where the moon is at its peak, that I’m pretty much uncontrollable. So on the first day, I can hold it. It’s kinda like when you have to take a wee, but you just sat to watch something at the cinema and it’s ages long but you don’t want to miss anything, you know? So you just hold it in. And it _hurts—_ the werewolf thing, not the wee thing.” He fiddled with a loose string on his jeans sprung from a hole at the knee. “The longer I do that, though, the more likely I am to change anyway and black out.”

“So you don’t normally black out?”

“Just on that middle night, I do. I never know where I’m gonna wake up, it’s…” He shakes his head, swallowing. “But those other days, I’m myself, just inside a wolf. I know what I’m doing. Unless I hold it in for a long time. It’s like…it has to be let out in safe doses like that, or otherwise it eventually takes me over.” He shrugs. “But like I said. The entire time, I’m a prick, so it’s best not to be around me _any_ of those days.”

“So, like, the usual then,” Louis says, starting a fresh round of bickering between them. Zayn just sits back, laughing.

Harry, however, summons one of his gel pens from upstairs. On the back of his hand in metallic purple, he writes WOLFSBANE. Just a reminder to look into. For Reasons.

It’s Zayn’s turn after that. He’s been alive since the 1600s, since Pakistan was still India. His family is a long line of sirens, descendants of mermaids who fell in love with humans and didn’t drown them. They masqueraded as human, living lives on land and secretly slipping off to the sea when they could.

They were a family of wealthy merchants during the last legs of the Mughal Empire, living under the rule of Shah Jahan, witnessing the construction of the Taj Mahal as a tomb for the emperor’s beloved wife. But then Shah Jahan grew ill and his zealous son, Aurangzeb, seized the throne from his brothers. Fearing for their lives when Aurangzeb began persecuting anyone outside the ordinary, Zayn and his family were forced to flee—and there was only one place they knew they would be safe.

“So you can breathe underwater?” Niall asks, voice hushed.

Zayn nods. “Got gills, webbed hands and feet.”

“That is _amazing_. Bet you’re a brilliant swimmer.”

“Well, of course he is,” Louis says, rolling his eyes. He’s more awake for this bit, as he hasn’t spent the last one century of his life with Zayn and doesn’t quite know all his little quirks like Harry does. Harry thinks it’s cute, how much attention they’re paying to Zayn, shamelessly staring at him in awe and wonder. Zayn is so shy, he’s clearly bashful about it, but the longer he talks, the more he begins to laugh and open up. Harry’s heart flutters when he thinks about how alone Zayn’s been and how glad he is that the four of them have something here for him to hold onto, like the coral reefs he used to anchor himself to.

“So what did you do?”

“Found Atlantis. It’s not really what you think. When you say Atlantis, you think it’s like one city, yeah? It’s not. It’s the name of like, a chain of cities. Pretty much any of the ones that have sunk throughout history. So there’s actually loads of places we live, and people tell them apart by which ocean they’re in.” He laughs suddenly. “As if the _oceans_ are even separate. As if it isn’t just one entity that we call home.”

“Where did you go?”

“The one we went to used to be Alexandria. You know, the city that sank off of Egypt? That’s where we stayed.. It was…” Zayn frowns. “Interesting.”

“Interesting? You lived in Atlantis and the best word you can come up with is _interesting_?” Louis wrinkles his nose.

“Well, I dunno.” Zayn shrugs. “The politics and all that, they weren’t for me. Everybody was always competing, trying to make themselves more important, and I just…didn’t want that. So I said bye to mum and my sisters and left. I found a group of sirens on an island and I spent a long time there. That was…the 1700s, I think.”

The island was somewhere between the New World and England, and he and his friends sunk many a ship during the days of pirates and international shipping. Over time, though, it wasn’t enough anymore. Wars were fought, times changed, and soon enough the ships were no longer wood but metal, and the sailors hardly had an ear for their songs. So they split up, left, swam away to find better horizons. He spent the next hundred years or so alone, discovering underwater plant life and making friends with fish and sharks.

“And?” Louis glances between them. “How’d you meet Harry?”

“Oh.” Zayn smiles. “I, uh. Well, it was an accident. I enchanted him.”

“You…” Niall grins. “Okay, there’s a story in there.”

* * *

_  
February, 2007. Bournemouth._

Zayn was looking for mother-of-pearl shells on the beach of all places, because Safaa asked him, and Safaa was his younger sister so of course, she gets what she wants.

To be honest, he was happy to oblige; he loved being underwater, but there were some days when he needed his legs back and when he needed to breathe through his mouth and nose, not the gills at the sides of his neck. There were days when he, admittedly, wanted to be away from his school of sisters for a while and where he just wanted to lay in the sun, wearing nothing but a skirt fashioned of seaweed that washed up on the shore beside him.

The thing was, he wasn't ready to deal with any of the shit back in Atlantis. He wasn't ready to deal with the politics of everyone fighting over who ought to be the next Sea King. And with how things were going so far, with the arguments and debates that turned almost into full-fledged violence, that could go on forever. He thought going to the ocean was supposed to be the _safe_ place. But it was looking like that wasn't the case, and Zayn was more disappointed than he was willing to admit. Because his people—sirens and mermaids, they were supposed to be _better_ than this. Sure, they had their own wills and desires and ambitions, but he never thought they would be so bloody _human_ about it all.

So he needed some time to himself, away from the rows and away from the backstabbing. Somewhere he could just do something nice for his sister and spend some time by _himself_.

It was almost easier when he was killing people. At least then he had something to do, something to keep his mind off things. It was almost like a high, too, a kind of release. Sailors back then were stupid things, believing that their salvation was either in serving some distant faceless monarch or stealing goods to sell to the highest bidder. He had a good time with his sisters and their friends, dragging them down to the depths. But then things changed. Cruises became a thing. Children were on them, families. Zayn lost his taste for it.

He was starting to think life was much easier when he was pretending to be human.

He got up and started poring over the beach, turning over stones and shells, rubbing sand off their rough surfaces, peering inside them, looking for that tell-tale blue and green sheen. Safaa was probably going to use the shells to make a crown or a necklace; that would be nice. Maybe he would offer to help her. He sang a song, an old lullaby his parents used to sing him when he was young, as he walked up and down, feet kicking through the warm sand. His voice echoed like the song of the sea, at once high and clear. It pushed and pulled, ebbing and flowing like the waves, haunting and beautiful all at once. It’s fine, he thought, since everyone else is down at the main beach by the boardwalks, away from his cliffs and crashing waves. There, he was alone and happy and utterly free, and nobody needed to worry about hearing him and falling under his spell.

Or, so he thought. 

He didn’t realize somebody was there until he heard something _thunk_ to the sandy ground behind him. He turned, a handful of seashells clutched to his bare chest. He dropped them as well when he saw the person standing there.

At first, Zayn thought he was a girl, his features were so delicate, but then he saw the broadness of the shoulders. Still, he was a slender sunflower with the biggest, widest green eyes that Zayn had ever seen. A mop of incorrigible brown curls fell over his forehead and into his eyes, and his full pink lips were parted; whether it was with surprise or desire, Zayn wasn’t sure.

He was wearing a pair of salmon-colored swim shorts, a sky blue button-down shirt with the already-short sleeves rolled up, and a sunhat with a bright yellow ribbon tied around it. The thing he dropped was a basket; spilling out of it and onto the sand were seashells and bottles filled with what looked like sand and also an oddly vibrant blue liquid. 

“Your…voice,” he said softly. He fell to his knees in the sand, slumping down to the ground in a somewhat graceful act of giving up. “It’s so beautiful. _You’re_ so beautiful.”

Zayn instantly closed his mouth. However, remnants of his voice still lingered in the echoes, and he could tell the enchantment hadn’t quite faded yet by the dreamy look in the boy's eyes.

He looked around in vague surprise, as if wondering how he got down there. He picked up a handful of sand, staring at it in confusion.

“Erm. Maybe you—” Zayn started, but the boy interrupted him.

“What language was that? Like nothing I’ve…ever heard…” He closed his eyes, like he could still hear the music. Odds were, he probably could.

“Hindustani.” Zayn quickly shook his head. “Wait, no. It’s Urdu nowadays, innit? I guess?”

“Urdu,” the boy murmured. As if his body was suddenly too heavy to hold him, he collapsed into the sand. He just lay there for a solid minute, Zayn watching him with his eyebrows raised. _Shit_. He thought he was far away enough to be able to sing, but he should’ve remembered, should’ve been more careful.

“Uh. Excuse me?” Zayn said. He inched toward the boy. “You all right, mate?”

The boy raised a hand and waved it somewhat in Zayn’s direction. He took that as a good sign. “All right.” He crouched down next to the boy. “Look, what’s your name?”

“Harry,” he said. 

“Right, okay. Can you do me a favor, Harry? Can you sit up?”

Languidly, Harry shook his head. _Nope._

“Right. How old are you, Haz?” He wasn't sure if it was a good idea to give a wayward boy on the beach a nickname—like naming a little kitten you’ve just met that you weren’t sure belonged to someone else or not—but he didn’t want him to be afraid of him.

“I’m fifteen.”

 _Yikes_. Physically, Zayn only looked about a year or so older than him, but he knew the age difference and it was really not something he wanted to think about. Harry started mumbling to himself, things that were absolutely unintelligible to Zayn, and he wasn't sure what else to do—so he grabbed one of his arms and started tugging.

 _Please don’t let anyone come over here and find me dragging a fifteen-year-old boy through the sand,_ Zayn thought, as he did exactly that, hauling Harry closer and closer toward the water. His hat came off as Zayn did it, but Harry didn’t seem to mind; he just smiled, eyes still closed. For someone so skinny and slight, he was surprisingly heavy; Zayn blamed it on the damned enchantment. For some reason, it hit this kid harder than anyone else he had ever seen; he was either magical himself in some way, or really susceptible to this kind of thing. Possibly gay. Possibly both.

Zayn managed to get him as far as the water—and then he dropped him in as a wave came rushing against the shore. Harry went under, fully submerging, before he was surging back up, shaking his soaked curls and sputtering.

“Sorry!” Zayn said immediately as Harry looked around, shocked. “You were…you heard my song, and I wasn’t sure what else to do.”

Harry stared at him, his hair dripping into his eyes. His blue shirt had gone absolutely transparent. “You—you’re a _siren_ ,” Harry managed, gaping.

Zayn looked down at the scales glittering over his skin, at the webbed spaces between his fingers and toes. He nodded. “Uh, yeah. Sorry I snared you.”

“That was…”

 _Horrible, terrifying, creepy,_ Zayn thought, filling the blanks in for him. But Harry didn’t say any of those things. Instead, his eyes lit up and he grinned at Zayn as if he was seeing the sun for the first time.

“Brilliant,” he exclaimed. “That was amazing!”

“It—what?”

“I’ve never met somebody like you before! Ever! I mean, I always hoped supernatural beings existed…” He scrambled to his feet, his soaked clothes hanging off him. He extended a hand, green eyes sparkling. “I’m Harry Styles.”

“Uh. Zayn Malik. What—” Zayn started to ask, but then he stoped, mouth dropping open.

Harry did a complicated hand gesture, finally pointing his fingers at himself. Zayn watched, mesmerized, as all the water was pulled out of Harry’s clothes in clouds of steam, leaving him standing there as dry as he was before Zayn dumped him into the ocean. He even did it to his hair, and Zayn watched as the curls spring back into their original soft shape. He couldn’t help staring; it had been centuries since he’d seen a witch.

“You…”

“I’m a _witch_!” Harry laughed, nodding. “Brilliant, right?”

“Brilliant,” Zayn echoed faintly. He didn’t even know what else to say, how else to react.

Harry rambled on then about how he and his family were letting a house there on holiday and how he had to leave because they were supposed to be meeting his great-great-aunt for lunch or some other do, and how Zayn ought to come by and visit, and would he be there on the beach tomorrow, because Harry would like to ask him about the ocean and the plants down there and some of the fish, and ask whether or not Atlantis is real; before Zayn knew it, he wasn't only agreeing to everything, but helping Harry pile everything back into his spilled basket and handing him his hat. He was even feeling kind of… _excited_ about it.

“Oh,” Zayn said, pointing at some of the shells in Harry’s basket. “Mother-of-pearl.”

“Yeah! Want some? I’ve got loads.” Harry dumped a whole handful into Zayn’s fingers, and Zayn stared at him anew.

“There you go,” Harry said proudly. “So I’ll see you tomorrow?”

Zayn nodded. Before he could even think about it, he nodded. “Yeah! ’Course.”

“Great! See you.” Harry waved and then darted off a few feet down the beach. He stopped, turned back, waved again, and then was gone for good.

Slowly, Zayn lowered his hand. He looked down at the seashells clasped in his other hand and he smiled. _I’ve got a land friend_ , he thought to himself, his smile widening. _I’ve got a friend on land._

It only took Zayn seeing Harry three more times after that for him to realize that _this_  was where he was meant to be all along.

* * *

Niall laughs so hard he falls off the couch.

Zayn smiles ruefully. “It was an accident! I thought I was alone on the beach. I made sure to get away from everyone, or, I thought so anyway.”

“What were you even doing over there?” Louis asks, bemused.

“The same thing, actually,” Harry says, smiling at the memory. “Not singing, but collecting seashells. I like them, and they’re handy in spells. Kelp, too.”

“So I guess you’re never allowed to do karaoke with us,” Louis says, shaking his head. “Shame. I bet your voice is lovely.”

“It is,” Harry says, sighing wistfully, and Louis looks over at him. “What? It is.”

“Well, don’t go making the rest of us jealous.”

“Sorry,” Harry whispers. On a whim, he blows Louis a magic kiss from across the room. He sees the exact moment that it touches Louis’ skin because he blinks, hand going to his cheek to where those phantom lips pressed themselves. He looks at Harry in wonder, smile growing.

“So what weird shit do you have to do as a siren?” Niall asks, pulling himself back up onto the sofa.

Zayn shrugs. “Just put salt in my water and I don’t eat fish, they’re like family. About once a month, too, I have to go back to the ocean. Just for a bit, my skin dries out if I don’t.” He makes a face. “I could just dump a fuckload of salt into the bath, but it’s just not the same. I like to be able to _swim_. That’s about it, though!”

Niall claps for him and Zayn blushes beautifully and then Harry’s sending a phantom poke across the room to Louis’ arm. “Your turn.”

“Me?” Louis waves a hand. “Not much to tell. Besides, I’m tired.”

“Not much to tell? You’re the oldest person in this room,” Niall says. “And that’s saying something.”

“Not true, actually, if you think about it. I died when I was twenty-three, twenty-four. Something like that.”

Zayn laughs. “You don’t remember, mate?”

“Well, in my defense, it’s been a _very_ long time.”

The only thing they can wheedle out of Louis is that he was born in the tenth century, which is a staggeringly long time ago in Harry’s dizzy head. He was bitten when he was in his early twenties and he died soon after. He woke up in a grave and was left alone for fifty years to find out about himself and his new “life” until he discovered the woman who’d turned him. She showed him some of the ropes before she was unfortunately killed by an angry mob. Since then, he’s been virtually on his own and has traveled the globe, learning everything he can.

“What can you do?” Zayn asks curiously. “Like, the movie shit? Fly and all that?”

Louis snorts. “Not particularly. Hm, what can I do? I can turn into mist.” Harry and Zayn both let out _ooh_ ’s at that, while Niall rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, it’s dead annoying if you’re in the middle of a conversation. You’re asking him if he left the towels on the back of the toilet or somethin’ instead of hanging them up like a normal person, and then _POOF_ , fucking mist.”

“Don’t be cross, Niall. I only do it because _you’re_ annoying.”

Niall throws a pillow at him, but Louis does exactly that and vanishes, becoming nothing more than incorporeal vapor in streams on the air, silvery and sleek. Harry gasps, hands clapped over his mouth, as the pillow flies through what remains of Louis and hits the back of the chair. Just like that, Louis materializes before their eyes and he’s sitting back against the pillow, grinning. Harry feels vaguely faint. He can turn the stars different colors if he wants, but this…this is unlike anything he’s ever seen. To completely change your molecular makeup to begin with is impossible, but to do it in less than a second, it’s…a lot to take in. All at once, Harry understands the never-changing silver of Louis’ aura. If he’s technically dead, it wouldn’t change, would it?

“Holy _shit,_ ” Zayn says, clapping. “What else?”

Louis starts ticking things off on his fingers. “Silver and garlic have no effect. Crosses don’t, either. I have pretty great hearing and sight. Smell, too, now that I think about it. Fast healing. Only direct sunlight burns me; if I’m in shade or covered up, I’m usually okay. Still makes me feel like shit, though. I can talk to some animals, too!”

Everyone nods; they all can, depending on the type. Harry likes that. It might be his favorite realization of the day.

“I _am_ bound by those invitation-only rules, so…” He smiles, glancing over at Harry. “That’s why I asked you if you were clear you wanted me to live with you.”

Harry remembers it. It seemed like such an odd thing. Sure, they hadn’t known each other for very long, but if he was certain about Niall, why wouldn’t he be certain about Louis as well? But Louis had asked him to explicitly say so. So he’d told him: “I am 100% sure I want you to live with me. Looking forward to it, actually.”

It feels like lightbulbs are just bursting in Harry’s mind all day, all the dots connecting at once. “But you only had to ask me, because the house is technically mine?”

Louis nods. “Bang on, Curly.” He looks down at his hand, his fingers still outstretched and open to count upon. “I have retractable fangs—there’s little pockets in the roof of my mouth, and _no_ , Niall, we’re not going to look at them, I’m not in the mood—and uh…oh! I have no reflection, anywhere. Not in mirrors and not conventional cameras. Cellphones don’t apply, obviously, as they’re digital.”

 _The picture. THE PICTURE!_ Harry knew something was strange, and that explains why he didn’t want to be seen in the mirror in the living room. “Holy shit,” Harry breathes and Louis must hear him, he has to, but he doesn’t react. If he has great hearing, then does that mean… _Oh my stars_ , Harry thinks, _I’ve been wanking off in the same house as him, TO him, and he has fucking superhero bionic hearing!_

His breath starts coming in shorter little puffs, and he starts thinking he _might_ just pass out.

Zayn says he can’t _picture_ that (Niall laughs, because of course) and so Louis offers to show them. Niall and Zayn race to the downstairs loo, because _of course_ , and they crowd into the small space, fighting over the cramped spot in front of the sink. Louis trails after them, rolling his eyes, but he stops when he realizes Harry isn’t following.

He looks back. “You all right, love?”

Harry’s entire body warms at the endearment. Also, some of it is probably due to sheer embarrassment, because there’s no earthly way Louis didn’t hear him whispering his name in the middle of the night as he came in his hand. This is it. Harry’s going to actually die of embarrassment. _Tell Gemma and Mum I love them_ , he imagines his last words to be. _Sorry you had to hear all that._ Because it wasn’t _just_ Louis’ name, it was all sorts of filth involving Louis doing things _to_ him. _Fuck. He’s so busted._

“Harry?” Then he laughs. Harry looks over to see Louis’ vivid smile, eyes crinkling. “Harry, your hair is _pink_!”

_Because of course._

“What’s takin’ so long, old man?” Niall shouts, voice louder than normal thanks to those damned acoustics. “Yeh need me to go grab your cane?”

“Remind me to punch him. Hard,” Louis says. He traipses back across the sitting room to fetch Harry, grabbing him by the hand. His skin is warm. That suddenly has an all-new meaning to Harry. “Come on, before he wets himself with impatience,” Louis says, grinning. He tugs on one of Harry’s curls. “This is a good look for you.”

The words come out in a rush. “Louis, I’m—” _What? Sorry you know that I like to think about you when I jerk off? That you’re the only person I see?_

“Hm?” Louis leads him through the maze of furniture toward the hallway.

“I’m… _gay_ ,” he says, not sure where the hell else he’s supposed to go with that. He can’t just _tell_ Louis that stuff, not when they know all this _other stuff_ about each other now.

Louis laughs again, harder than last time, faltering in his mission to bring Harry to the loo. “Yes,” Louis says, nodding sagely. “I had some idea of that.”

“I just—I mean—”

Still laughing, Louis turns to Harry and catches him mid-sentence with a kiss. He cups his chin as he does, standing only slightly on his tiptoes to do so. It’s without a doubt the _cutest_ kiss Harry’s ever had, Louis’ free hand holding onto his like he’s about to slip a secret into his palm, like he’s about to read his future from the lines across his skin. His thumb brushes the line of Harry’s jaw, chasing it up to his ear and past, into his thick pink curls, and Harry shivers.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Louis says, grinning, when they part for a breath. “But I know.” He pats Harry’s cheek softly and then walks down the corridor, Harry trailing after him.

 _He knows_ , Harry thinks to himself, more calmly this time. _He knows. And that’s okay. Because I want him to know. Right?_ He does, of course. But it would certainly help him feel like less of an absolute _nerd_ if Louis could even the playing field just a little and let him know that he’s just as affected. Do vampires even _get_ affected like that? Harry thinks about the gel pen sitting in his pocket, wanting to make a note, a reminder to ask Louis, but he’s not sure writing the words VAMPIRE SEX?? on his hand will be of much help to anyone, least of all him.

Harry’s so distracted thinking about sex that when they get into the bathroom, he almost forgets why they’re in there—until he sees his hand holding onto thin air in the mirror. He gasps. He can _feel_ Louis standing next to him, can see him when he turns his head, but in the mirror there’s just nobody, nobody but the three of them and an empty space. It makes Harry feel uncomfortable, the thought of them without Louis. He holds Louis’ hand just a little bit tighter.

“Now _that_ is proper weird,” Zayn whispers.

“Cool, right?” Niall asks, looking at their faces to gauge their reactions.

“Cool,” Harry breathes. Except it’s not. It’s unbelievably not cool.  

It isn’t until they’re back out in the living room that Harry asks. He has to. “Lou?”

“Yes.”

“Does that mean…that time you were looking at the picture on the mantel, there. Do you really not know what you look like?”

Both Zayn and Niall’s heads swing toward him. Louis nods, shrugging. “Yeah. It’s been…hundreds of years. Pictures are the only way I really know, and even then, our energy messes with electronics. So that’s why my face is kind of blurred in it.” He frowns at that last part, as if he’s disappointed.

“Well, Zayn could draw you, right?” Harry directs that last part at Zayn.

Zayn glances back and forth between them. “I…I could _try_ , I guess. I’m not all that great at faces, to be honest, but—”

“Rubbish, you’re great!”

“I always forget you can’t see yourself,” Niall says out loud, rubbing his chin. “Christ, that must get mad, yeah? Like how do you know what you’re wearing when we go out?”

Louis levels an even stare in his direction. “Well, Niall, having a pair of working _eyes_ , I _am_ blessed with an optic nerve—I can still look down at myself and see what it is I’m wearing.”

Harry leans over toward where Niall is sitting. “If you want, I can conjure some ice for that burn, y’know, if you need it—”

Niall scowls, pushing him away. “Oh, shove it. You two think you’re so fuckin’ clever.”

“Actually, I’m quite certain of it,” Louis says breezily, reclining sideways in the armchair, his legs thrown over one of the arms like he’s lounging on a throne. “D’you know how many times I’ve graduated uni?”

“How many?”

Louis does some quick maths in his head. “Well, let’s see. With four years in mind, thirty-eight times.”

“That’s…” Harry sees the numbers behind his eyes. “That’s one hundred and fifty-two _years_ of uni.”

Louis looks around at them. He shrugs, _laissez-faire_ to the end. “Well, it’s not like I did it all at _once_. And that’s just the four-year bits, I spent around two hundred years at Oxford alone.”

“At least you’re proper posh, then,” Zayn says.

“Well,” Louis says, and this is what Harry has come to know as Louis’ _“um actually”_ voice, the one that says you’re sort of right, but you’re actually wrong and he’s going to explain to you just how much you really _don’t_ know. “When I went there, it was markedly different than now.”

“Oh?” Harry asks faintly.

“Mm-hm. The first year I went, it was…1191. I had just—” He stops, reorganizes his thoughts with a small frown. He’s looking even more exhausted than usual; he’s paying for that jaunt in the loo. “I had just moved to England. I actually helped write the city charter.”

“In English?”

Louis shakes his head. “Latin.”

"Oh yeah? Say something in Latin, then," Zayn challenges. 

" _Stultus es._ "

"Which means...?"

"You're a fool." 

Zayn rolls his eyes. "Say something else."

Louis glances at Harry.  _"Dilectus meus mihi et ego illi._ "

"What the hell does all that mean, then?"

Louis points to Zayn's phone sitting on the coffee table between them. "Welcome to the twenty-first century, lad, there's this thing called Google. You don't need to attend Oxford for two hundred years to know that." 

 _1191\. Latin._ Harry feels that swooning feeling coming on again. He resists the urge to put his head between his legs, the way they tell you to do when you’re dizzy. He imagines they probably didn’t have “the guy I’m into is a fucking thousand-year-old VAMPIRE” reactions in mind. Harry closes his eyes, trying to squeeze in a quick meditation. As sneakily as he can, he summons his calming rose quartz down from his room, rubbing the small gems between his fingers. 

“Right,” Zayn says, snapping his fingers at Louis, another kind of challenge on his mind. “I’ve got a question for you, then.”

“Hm?”

“Jack the Ripper. You were there. Who was he?”

Harry’s eyes snap open at that. A person savagely attacking people—

Louis’ makes a _psh_ sound. “Fuck should I know? Just because I was alive _during_ a time doesn’t mean I know everything that happened during it.”

“Damn.” Zayn brightens a second later. “You could make somebody up. Somebody you knew back then, yeah? We’d be famous!”

“Trust me,” Louis says, throwing an arm over his eyes. It’s almost one o’clock in the afternoon and he’s dragging. “Fame is not all that it’s cracked up to be.”

“ _Oi_ , now what does _that_ mean?” Zayn asks and they go back and forth for the next few minutes, Louis tiredly evading, and Zayn trying to think of ever more questions to quiz him with while Niall plays some game on his phone.

But something has been bothering Harry. He raises his hand meekly.

Without even removing the arm from across his eyes, Louis says, “Yes, Harry.”

“Um. What do you eat?”

“Ah.” He sits up, nodding as if he’d been waiting for that particular question. “Right, of course. I’m a…vegetarian sanguivore. Meaning I eat blood, naturally, but when I call myself a vegetarian, I mean I don’t eat _people_. At least, not to their faces.” Louis laughs at the look on Harry’s face, his eyes crinkling. “The first thing I did when we moved here is make friends with a blood tech at that hospital a county over, and when I say friends, I mean I’m paying him an enormous amount of money. Don’t worry. I don’t really need that much and he screens everything for me to make sure it’s clean. I can eat maybe…twice a month and be fine.”

“Are you sure?” Harry has all these images in his head of Louis wasting away. “Is that good for you?”

Louis shrugs nonchalantly. “It’s kept me alive for a good long while, so why change now?”

With that, however, Louis announces he’s done for the day. He’s been up far too long past his bedtime, and it’s dangerous for him to change what little of a circadian rhythm he has left, being that his nighttime is potentially harmful to him unless the curtains are drawn up good and tight.

Before he can slump back to his room, Niall suddenly says, “Hang on. What about Harry?” He turns to his still-pink-haired friend, mobile game forgotten. “What can you do?”

“Me? Not much, I promise. Not like all of you.” Harry is just a witch. He’s…just Harry. There’s no call to the sea swimming in his veins, no beast howling to get free of his skin, and certainly no all-consuming desire for blood pumping through him and keeping him alive. He likes flowers and sunshine. He casts spells and makes potions. He heals animals for a living. That’s it.

“What do you mean, _not much_?” Zayn asks, scowling at him, as though he’s personally offended him. “I’ve seen you create another galaxy in your hands!”

Harry laughs that away instantly. “There wasn’t any intelligent life there, it was just a few million stars and—”

Niall’s eyes nearly bug out of his head. “ _A few million stars?_ Come on, you’ve got to show us that.”

Harry looks over at Louis. Louis cocks his head to the side, shrugging. “You’re the one with all the power here, you know.”

Harry sighs. “All right. Just really quick, and if it doesn’t work, it’s not my fault. It’s incredibly difficult.”

Zayn and Niall get up and gather around, Louis sauntering back over, all of them crowding their heads in close. Their hair is touching, all four of them, and Harry realizes what a complete picture they make, a puzzle fitting together right here in their living room. Like the four elements of nature, here they are, bound and fated to make the world turn. Harry loves every single one of them more completely and undoubtedly in that moment than he ever has anyone outside his own family. They’re a new type of family, now.

“Okay,” he whispers. “Ready?”

Three heads nod around him.

“Okay.” He cups his hands out in front of him, bending so they can all see. He squeezes his eyes shut tight and conjures up his magic, calling it forth from the recesses of himself, calling on the bits of it that linger in the waking world: The sun outside, the flowers dotting the countryside, the wind that speeds through the trees of the nearby forest. He doesn’t take too much, just enough to get a spark going. He feels it catch, hangs onto it as he casts the spell in his head.

Pursing his lips, he begins to blow.

Louis gasps first. The sound makes Harry open his eyes. Glowing in his cupped hands is a galaxy much like their own, a small swirling vortex of stardust and celestial bodies. Each little star is impossibly small to their eyes, but to Harry, it’s as large as life; he can _feel_ every single one of them drawing power down from him, like they’re shimmerin freckles on his skin, like he’s covered in a smattering of glitter where every single piece of it is a part of his magic, his soul. When he breathes in and out, he can feel the elements falling into place alongside each other, can feel carbon catching in his throat, can taste the heaviness of gravity holding everything in place, the lightness of air.

Zayn’s eyes are enormous, his dark pupils reflecting every pinprick of light in Harry’s hands; Niall has his hands over his mouth like he’s afraid to breathe, like it might ruin it; but it’s Louis’ face that Harry is drawn toward. He’s standing in front of Harry, directly across from him, and their eyes meet over the stars. The glow emanating off of them lights Louis’ face from below, turning his skin a soft light blue, and shadowing the angles of his face. He’s never seemed to be so much of something _else_ than in that moment; not wholly human, but not wholly a monster, either. His eyes light up when he sees Harry watching him and that slow, easy grin blooms on his face like a flower.

Harry knows now, knows in his mind that Louis _isn’t_ alive, not technically, not practically. And yet…looking at him now, he’s floored by it all over again. Because looking at him here, vibrating with light and cheer, how can he _not_ be?

He’s alive to _them._ Maybe that’s what matters the most, out of all of this. He’s alive to Harry.

And that’s good. That’s important.

But Harry still can’t shake the feeling that’s been hanging over him since this all started.

He lets go of the magic slowly, so as not to strain himself. The stars begin blinking out, one by one, like balloons that Harry’s popping with a magic pin. He lets out a breath and the galaxy fades back into his palm, only a thin sheen of fine silver dust left behind. Standing up, he blows it, and it swirls through the air, scattering; from outside, Harry’s wind chimes blow with the remaining magic left behind, their metal and wood softly clanging together.

“Wow,” Niall breathes.

“Yeah,” Zayn says somewhat proudly. “Told ya.”

Louis is still smiling, but it turns into a yawn that he tries to smother with his hand. Harry looks at him sternly. “It’s bedtime for you.”

Instead of fighting it, Louis nods. “’Fraid you’re right, Harold. Take me to bed?”

Niall chokes, coughing, his eyes watering. Zayn just rolls his eyes good-naturedly. “Fancy a game of FIFA?” Zayn asks and Niall hastily agrees.

Harry nods through his blushing. His hair is still pink, he remembers; he’ll have to fix that at some point. Later. Eventually. He takes Louis’ hand and leads him down the hallway to his bedroom. Harry’s heart beats fast when he nears the door. He goes to open it but stops, looking back at Louis, silently asking permission.

Louis nods. “You’re not bound by the rules of invitation, darling. That’s me, remember?”

“Just being _polite_ ,” Harry grumbles and Louis laughs.

“As much as I appreciate it, you don’t have to. You know nearly everything there is to know about me now; you can come and go as you like. Besides, you forget that I’ve spent decades with _Niall_ ; if there’s anyone who has gotten me accustomed to never knocking, it’s him.”

Harry turns the knob and pushes the door open. It takes several minutes for him to adjust—not only is it freezing, but Louis has some blackout drapes hanging over his window and it’s very nearly pitch-black. When Harry’s eyes allow him to see, he notices Louis’ room is a mess. There are colorful shapes on the floor, what Harry assumes are clothes, as well as books, magazines, movies, several footie kits, a dirt-streaked ball, shoes thrown to the four winds, and an unseemly amount of LPs for the ancient record player he’s got set up against the wall. His bed is unmade, the covers half-falling off to the floor, and just about every framed picture and poster tacked to his blank walls is crooked. A miniature refrigerator that hums quietly in one corner.

“What’s that for?” Harry asks, pointing at the refrigerator.

“Blood,” Louis answers promptly.

Right. Of course. “Do you…drink it like that, or—?”

Louis makes a noise, similar to an _ew_. “No, I much prefer it warm. It does okay in the microwave. Has a bit of an aftertaste, but I’ve learned to deal with it.”

“Was that weird for you? Like…new technology and stuff?”

Louis screws up his face, idly kicking some things out of Harry’s way. He doesn’t let go of Harry’s hand as he does, just stretches somewhat away from him. “Sort of? I mean, the _idea_ of new technology wasn’t new. Like travel on open water. That was new for a little while, then it became normal, and then other things got to be new, like…” Louis shrugs trying to think of something. “Like books! The printing press, you know. It was like ‘ooh nice, top form, we’ve got something new again!’” So I was used to that, but like…seeing how things have gotten to this point has been really interesting. Like the strides people have made in the last two centuries alone is tremendous. A little scary, actually, when you think about how long everything else took, but interesting all the same.”

He laughs suddenly. “You don’t want to actually hear about this, do you? Old man, blathering on.”

Harry smiles. “No, I do. You’ve seen so much, Lou, there are just… _so_ many questions.”

Louis yawns widely again. “Well, you’ll have to file them away with my secretary because I’m off duty for now.”

“C’mon,” Harry says, tugging Louis toward the bed. Louis practically falls into it, laying there for a solid minute before he finally forces himself to move, rolling over with slow, liquid movements. He pulls Harry down beside him, so he’s sitting on the edge of the mattress.

“So,” Harry whispers. “No coffin, then, I guess.”

Louis smirks. “Not quite. They’re not really all that comfortable, see. Plus, can you imagine what people would’ve thought throughout the years if they saw me trying to move coffins up into tenements and tiny flats?” He laughs again. “No way.”

They sit there in the semi-darkness, fingers still loosely entwined. Harry knows he _should_ be happy about all this. It’s a _relief_ , finding out about Louis, and Niall as well, the whole lot of them. He hated hiding himself, hated having to lie about Zayn; it didn’t sit right. It kept him awake at night sometimes, how he had to tiptoe and tell half-truths for fear of rejection. After all, Harry was raised to be as open as possible, always—he is, and always will be, unapologetic to his core about who he is. He will neither hide, nor shrink back, from what he is—and that happens to be a gay witch. But he compromised that part of himself, just for a little while, because he loved his new friends so much that he was worried. He thought they were regular people who would react unfavorably.

Now everything’s different, and he _is_ happy, sort of. This is the best thing that could have happened. But mostly he’s angry. Not at anybody else, just himself.

Louis must sense something, because he shifts, looking up at Harry from the bed. “What’s wrong?” he whispers.

Harry contemplates saying _nothing_. But he’s tired of hiding, tired of lying. So he shakes his head. “I just…I should’ve _known_. I’m smarter than that, I should’ve put it together on my own! Looking back, it’s so obvious and I’m—”

Louis sits up so fast that Harry doesn’t even see it happen. He scoots forward on the bed to sit beside Harry, one hand on his thigh. “Harold. Stop.”

“I’m serious, I—”

“So am I. How many supernatural people do you know? Besides witches in your own family, and besides me and Niall.”

Harry looks up. “Just Zayn and his family. I always _thought_ others existed, I just hadn’t met anyone.”

“That you know of, anyway. And why is that, do you think? Because we stay hidden. We keep to ourselves, in small groups so we don’t raise suspicions, like me and Niall, like you and Zayn. If we don’t have someone else like that, we rough it alone. We have to keep things secret like that. Because we know the price of being honest, what that truth and openness can bring.”

Louis takes a deep breath. “Let me tell you a story: In the 1600s, I moved back here, to England. I had actually just come back from India, where I had met some really beautiful, courageous, open people. And I had been there a long time, so it was something I had grown used to. When I came back here, it was like living during the Dark Ages all over again. People were afraid. There was all this religious turmoil, and people believed in monsters, in the devil. Despite all that danger and fear, I ended up meeting someone.”

Harry doesn’t say anything, just waits. His heart is beating fast in his ears.

“I fell in love with him. We were together, secretly, and he confided in me that his family were all witches. He, however, was not. There was a small bit of power in his blood, but not enough that he could channel it the same way his family could. I thought we were safe. I thought we could have a life together. Maybe that was naïve of me.”

Louis stops for a moment. His fingers grip Harry just a little bit tighter.

All of a sudden, he picks it back up, voice brisk and determined. “But I got sloppy. I let my guard down. I told him about me, and he vowed to keep my secret, like I knew he would. He loved me anyway, despite it all. But someone overheard us, or saw us, I’m not sure which, and the rumors began to spread. It was one thing, having an illicit relationship. That alone could have warranted a hanging for both of us. But to have a vampire, a _demon_ , walking among the townsfolk…it was unthinkable.”

“There was a man there at the time, practically sanctioned by King Charles himself. Called himself the _Witchfinder General._ Matthew Hopkins,” Louis practically hisses in the dark, and Harry swears that his eyes go red for just a second. “All of the commotion around town got on his radar and he showed up to deal with it in an official capacity. At that point, I was prepared to fight, to give myself up, to do whatever I needed to do. I was over six hundred years old; I’d lived a _life_ , many of them, I had no regrets. But I didn’t want anything to happen to that boy. He was still so young. So we were going to run away together that night, before our trial in the morning.”

“What happened?” Harry whispers.

“Someone got wind of our plan, or maybe they were expecting it. They stormed his family’s house, and pulled them out in the middle of the night, just before we were supposed to leave. I was there, of course, so they pulled me out, too. They separated us, tied me up. Tried to get a confession out of me, but when trying to burn me with a cross didn’t work, they imagined that maybe they’d been wrong. Until Hopkins came in.” Louis reaches up, rubbing his chest. “He didn’t even say a word, just staked me through the fucking chest. Of course, that doesn’t work either. My cells regenerate too quickly for it to be of much use, but it hurt like nothing else, and my cells couldn’t regenerate until I’d pulled the stake out, which hurt even more. The worst part is that he looked at me as he was doing it. He looked at me and twisted the fucking stake, and then didn’t even pull it out, almost like he knew. He just left it and went off with the town people.

“So I broke free of the chains they’d gotten me with, pulled the stake out, and snuck away. Nobody was left in the streets, but I could hear their voices coming from the town square; they were clapping and cheering, shouting and chanting something. I just started running. I tried to get there in time, but it was too late.” Louis looks down, at his hand on Harry’s knee, at their entwined fingers. “He was already dead. Him and his mother were burned at the stake, him for having congress with a minion of the devil, and she for birthing a suspected witch.”

“But he didn’t even have—”

“I know,” Louis says softly.

Harry fingers grip his fiercely. “Louis, it’s _not_ your fault.”

“It kind of is, though, innit? If I hadn’t been there—if I had just kept my fucking mouth shut, you know?” He squeezes Harry’s knee gently. “It’s all right, you know. You don’t have to say anything. I’ve made my peace with those days long ago. But this is the point I’m trying to make. Tragedy is how we learn not to repeat our mistakes. We have to keep things from people to save those we care about, to save ourselves. It’s how we learned to survive. Self-preservation.”

“You only knew Zayn,” Louis says, touching Harry’s shoulder now. “So logically, that’s where your mind went, to the idea that of course Niall and I seemed like proper blokes, that we were human. Why would we be anything else? That doesn’t make you stupid or naïve, it just means you hadn’t arrived at the real conclusion yet.”

His mind is spinning with everything that Louis’ just told him, the ache of that loss. “I still feel stupid,” Harry grumbles.

“Harry Styles.” Louis gently takes Harry’s chin, turning his face toward him so all he can see are Louis’ eyes in the dimness. “You are _not_ stupid. You have never been, nor will you ever be. You are one of the cleverest people I’ve ever known in all my years. You see things that other people can only hope to. You see so much more than anyone else.”

“Louis, I couldn’t even see that my own flatmates were a werewolf and a vampire!”

“And that’s not your fault! Do you think we honestly haven’t taken precautions against being found out, after everything we’ve been through? It’s a habit, a necessity. Trust is not something that’s easy to come by with us. How many of us trusted others in the past, only for it to be a fatal mistake? But you still saw things, Harry. You made those healing teas for Niall because you could see him struggling, because he gets tired and sad, a wolf without a proper pack, only me to run with him through the night. You always made sure to clean up after Zayn and watch his back, because you knew, just like us, that you had to protect him from the potential danger of someone finding out about him. And you knew about me, about my eating habits and sleep schedule, and it didn’t put you off for a second.

“You accepted my shortcomings.” Louis grins. “Nearly no questions asked. You accepted all of us, even if you weren’t sure what you were accepting! That feeling is so alien, so strange, that we’d almost forgotten what it felt like. You reminded us. You showed us this was a safe place. You saw past the monsters to what _matters_. You were the one who knew all of us all along.”

Harry honestly doesn’t know how to react to that, what to say. All he can do is blink his impossibly long lashes and stare. Louis must know, must be able to tell, because he leans forward on his knees and hugs Harry, folding his arms around him, cradling him to his chest. Harry presses his face into the crook of Louis’ neck and inhales, breath hitching like he’s about to cry. Everything today is so much suddenly, so much to take, and Louis is the perfect remedy.

“It’s okay, you know?” Louis says, brushing his fingers through Harry’s curls. “Nobody’s perfect. Not even you, witchy boy.”

Harry laughs and some of the tension melts out of him. “And here I thought I was.”

“Well, sometimes. But only to me.”

Heart beating hard, Harry is seized by the impulse, kissing Louis’ neck softly. Louis rolls his head, tilting away to give Harry more access, and he lets out a heavenly sigh. “Can I ask you something?” he asks.

Harry nods, lips brushing over Louis’ skin. “Mm-hm.”

“What did you think was going on?”

Harry sits back, but he keeps his hand on Louis’ neck. It’s so strange not feeling a pulse fluttering there, but Harry thinks if there’s anything he’s willing to get used to, it’s that. “I thought for a little while that you might be a vampire, but it was a joke thought, not something real.” He shrugs. “Other than that, no idea, honestly. That you were on drugs? Some kind of junkie rentboy?” Louis snorts at that. “That maybe you’d found me out and you were upset?”

Louis smirks. “I had found you out. I saw you cleaning that day, when we first moved in. Remember? Nina Simone?”

Harry’s mouth drops open. “You— _what_?”

Louis nods eagerly. “Uh-huh. You were so _cute_ —”

“Oh my _god_ ,” Harry groans, dropping his head to lean against Louis’ shoulder. “Oh my god, you saw all that and you knew—”

“Yep. And why would you ever think I’d be upset? You’re dead brilliant, you are. The most powerful one of all of us.”

“Let’s not get too excited.”

“Erm, did you forget what you just did like twenty minutes ago?” Louis ruffles his hair jokingly. “Silly boy. Was that all?”

Harry shrugs. “I also kind of thought that you were all just doing things without me?”

“Ha! As if we would. As if we _could_. You’re the heart of us, you know? The center that keeps us going.” He tugs gently on one of Harry’s curls. “We’d be lost without you.”

Harry hides his face in Louis’ neck again, blushing.

Louis snickers at that, holding him close. “Your hair’s gone red,” he whispers.

“Your fault,” Harry pouts. His breath warms the surface of Louis’ skin. Something is tugging at his mind, and he follows it, sees where it’ll lead. “Can I ask _you_ something now?”

“Anything.”

Harry lifts his head. “If you knew about all of us—about me—why didn’t you say anything?”

“Well. Same reason as you, Curly. I was scared.”

“Scared? _You_?”

Louis huffs out a breath. “I am old and undead, darling, not without feeling. I was…well. Out of all of us, I’m the most…” He pauses, searching for the word.

“Monstrous?”

Instead of being offended, Louis just nods. “Yes. I’ve done things. Terrible, awful things. I wish I could say that they were only to protect myself, to survive, but they weren’t. When I was young, I was a fool, a coward, I was…inhuman. There are so many things that I have to live with, that I’ve had to seek forgiveness for. Those are things that will never go away, no matter how long I live. I’ve seen so many people look at me like I was a monster, and rightly so.” He shrugs. “I was afraid you and Zayn would do the same.”

“Lou, if Niall hasn’t run screaming from you yet, I doubt we would.”

“Yes, but he _understands_. Even Zayn does, to a point. I was mostly afraid—”

Harry realizes it all at once. “Because of me.”

Louis nods. “Zayn came to chat to me. Did that whole ‘threatening best friend’ bit.” Harry rolls his eyes at that, but Louis goes on. “He told me about witches. That you lot…you’re like wolves, or whatever.”

“Monogamous, yeah. Once we develop an attachment to someone, it’s hard to break.”

“Why is that?”

“The pull of our magic. It’s in the blood. I’m…I don’t really know how to explain it. Our magic makes us stronger, but it makes us vulnerable at the same time.” Harry looks at Louis, his heart thundering in his chest now. His cheeks are so hot, he can hardly breathe. “What else did he tell you?”  

“That because you’re a witch, you’re like, the soul of creation, of wonder. You’re _nice_ , you know? You’re _good_ , and then there’s…there’s people like us, who have hurt people in the past for whatever reason, for fun, for food, whatever. So I was worried that because of that distinction, those differences between us, that it might scare you so badly that you’d want nothing to do with me.”

Want nothing to do with Louis? What an utterly ridiculous concept. It’s an impossibility. “Louis.” Harry laughs, shaking his head. Louis raises his eyebrows. That just makes Harry laugh more. “ _Louis_. How could you ever think that?”

“How could you ever think I’d be upset with you?”

“No, really, Louis. I don’t…Look. I want you to know I’m being one hundred percent serious with you right now.” Harry takes a deep breath. His mind is a jumbled mess, but this is something he wants— _needs_ —to get right. “I can’t judge you for what you’ve done in your past. I didn’t know you then. I can only judge you for what you’ve done now, and that’s nothing to be judged _for_. From the moment we met, you were only ever lovely. That, to me, is positive growth. You’ve _changed_. You’re not that person anymore. It’s not something I want to think about, your past, but it’s quite clear you’re different so that’s what I want to focus on. As long as you’ve forgiven yourself, I can forgive you, too.”

“As far as the other stuff goes.” Harry lays his palm flat against Louis’ chest, where there should be a heartbeat, but there isn’t. “They teach us when we’re young that everything in life is a cycle. There’s birth, life, death, rebirth. That’s how it goes. It’s represented in the harvest, in the planting of seeds; in the very seasons that keep the earth alive. We are a part of that cycle. Yours, I think, got a little messed up along the way. Your soul stayed in your body. You rose from the dead, right? I mean, technically?” Louis nods. “So maybe this is your rebirth. It’s not traditional, it’s not natural, but it’s _yours_. And it’s what you have now. This is your second chance.”

 _Samsara._ “For what?” Louis asks. His voice sounds a little rough.

Harry shrugs. “I dunno. Whatever you want to do. Meet me, maybe?”

Louis laughs and he sounds like himself again. “Now _that_ is something I’d die for a thousand times over.”

“You’re so _camp_ ,” Harry says, wrinkling his nose as he smiles. “I really have no idea how I didn’t see you were a vampire before.” He has an image in his head of Dracula professing his eternal, undying love for Mina Harker. Yeah, he can really see how Louis might have had a hand in helping write all that. He likes it. Like, a _lot_.

“That’s the good thing, though. You love camp, so here I am. Campy and undead, for your pleasure.” He yawns almost directly in Harry’s face. “At night time, though.”

“Before I go,” Harry says, his smile dimming somewhat. “I want to say thank you.”

Louis lays back down on the bed, eyes in slits like a cats. “For what?”

“For telling me all of that. For…I dunno. Opening up.” For one of the first times since they met, Harry thinks he’s finally getting a glimpse at who Louis truly is. “I know it can’t have been easy, talking about that.”

“It wasn’t. I’ve only ever told one person, and not even in such detail.”

“Niall?”

Louis nods. “He knows there was someone, and he knows something bad happened. He knows I blamed myself for a long time.”

Harry takes Louis’ hand again, has to touch him to let him know, has to make him feel it. “It really wasn’t your fault, though. It was that Hopkins creep.”

“Oh, I know. How do you think I came to terms with it, darling?” There’s that flash in his eyes again, and Harry shivers. “It took me several years, but I hunted him down.”

“And?”

“And I tore his fucking heart out.”

Harry isn’t one for violence, has never been. His powers entirely rest on the sanctity of life, of upholding it and cherishing it as the most precious thing in the universe. But that includes _all_ things, witches and the supernatural, gay or otherwise. That man himself was a perversion of it.

So he nods. “Good. How funny is it, that they call you—us—the monsters, when it’s so clear that _they_ are?”

“Reminds me of something I heard once,” Louis says, smiling in the dark. “Knowledge is knowing that Frankenstein isn’t the monster, he’s the doctor. But _wisdom_ is knowing that Dr. Frankenstein himself _is_ the monster, after all.”

Harry doesn’t know what to follow that with—only, he’s very interested to realize he just identified himself as separate from humans, from everyone else, from the _normal_ people. It’s looking as though if there’s a line drawn in the sand, he’s quite clearly chosen his side. 

He looks down at Louis, who is dozing and preparing to leave him for sleep. He wants to ask him if he dreams. Wants to ask what he dreams about, if his room is silent without his breaths in the darkness, if he has nightmares, if he ever jolts out of them without a heart to race him awake. But Harry doesn’t, because his time is over now.

As he’s leaving, he does ask one final question. “Lou?”

“Mm?” He’s so close to sleep, Harry’s about to lose him. He wonders if he’ll remember this when he wakes up at night.

“What was his name?” Harry asks. “That boy in the village. The one you loved.”

“Edward,” Louis mumbles, and then sighs, almost lovingly. “His name was Edward.”

With that, he’s gone, tumbling down into sleep.

Harry tingles all the way out of Louis’ room. He shuts the door behind him and when he lets go of the knob, an electric spark races through him, like he’s been shocked. He squeaks, clutching his hand to his chest. He looks down at it, frowning. There’s a red mark on his fate line, the line in his palm that goes straight through his head and heart lines. It’s warm to the touch.

 _Edward is my middle name_ , he thinks. He rubs at the mark, but it doesn’t go away, no matter how hard he tries.

* * *

Gemma calls an hour later when Harry’s in the middle of some meditation and frenzied journaling to get all of his feelings out on the page. Niall went to work and Zayn went out to get food, leaving him essentially alone to freak the hell out over all these new developments. 

“H’lo, Gem,” he says. She started all this, in a way. Rather typical of her, he thinks.

“What are you doing right this minute?” She sounds distracted.

He’s floating in mid-air, long legs folded up lotus-style. “Erm, meditating? Why?”

“I had a feeling, H. A big one.” She doesn’t elaborate any further. He’s used to this, with Gemma. She gets feelings, usually powerful indications that something’s either about to happen, or that something has happened to someone. They come in flashes, in sights and sounds, tastes and sensations; more often than not, they come as _suggestions_.

“Uh-huh. And?”

“It was about you. I was in the kitchen, making a sandwich, and then I swear it was like I heard your voice right behind me. You said my name.”

“I did?” It makes sense, if it’s true. His energies have been out of sync all day; who’s to say he _didn’t_ accidentally astral-project his essence to his sister back home in Cheshire?

“Yes! And I thought it might be serious, so I did a quick reading.” His sister is famous around town for his tarot readings; it’s one of the ways she managed to put herself through uni. “And I think you have something to tell me.”

 _Do I?_ “What’d you get?”

He can hear that flat smacking sound as she turns the cards over. He gets the sense that she’s done this several times already, that she focuses on him and pulls from the deck, only to continue getting the _same three cards._ The frustration is there in her voice—and the worry. “The Lovers,” she says. “The Two of Cups, and the Four of Wands. This is the fifth time now that I’ve dealt. There is no way that this could happen unless it’s—”

“—fate,” Harry finishes, shivering. “Yeah, I know.” He feels somewhat faint. “Read them off to me again?”

He can hear the whirring and snapping as she shuffles the deck. Then, _whish, smack_. “The Lovers,” she says again. “The Two of Cups. The Four of Wands. Again and a-bloody-gain.”  

“And?” Harry asks. He swallows hard, his chest suddenly aching. “What’re you getting from that?”

“What I’m _getting_ , H, is a pattern. Nearly all these cards mean the same thing.” She pauses for just a moment. “You’re in love.”

The funny thing is, Harry Styles came to that exact conclusion just an hour ago.


	2. summer lovin'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okayyyyy sorry this took so long!! but i ended up re-writing like 3/4 of this because the first time i started writing it, it was insanely angsty trash. this one i hope is a little bit better. there's some angst in here but it's not nearly as bad and i think it could be much worse. anyway thanks for your patience, you're all lovely!! xo

_June_

It’s remarkable how things change, but mostly how they stay exactly the same.

It is such a relief that they all know about each other now; it makes everything that much more convenient. For example, when Louis opens the freezer one evening and discovers it’s chock full of raw meat. He stares at it for all of one second, before he feels the presence behind him.

“Me, or Niall?”

“Niall,” Harry says. “They’re treats.”

“Treats,” Louis repeats, turning to look at him. Harry’s hair is up in a bun, tied with the sky blue ribbon Niall bought him. He’s wearing a transparent shirt patterned with birds, and Louis can see the butterfly tattooed on his chest within. _Air_ , Louis thinks, remembering the way he’s prone to floating and hovering. _Flying free_.

Harry nods, grinning. “Isn’t it brilliant? They’re for the full moon! I hide them in the forest for him to find, and it’s like a game.”

Louis is struck again, all at once, almost like the first time, just how _amazing_ and unbelievable Harry is. No matter how long he lives, he will never get over that feeling. Standing in front of him is a being of pure magic, and he sees it every day, in the little things. “That is either the cleverest idea I’ve ever heard, or the most dangerous.”

“Well, until I figure out this wolfsbane potion, it’s what he’s got,” Harry says breezily. “You should go out with him some night! It’s more fun, now.”

Fun. Louis never thought in a million years that that’s how he’d hear someone describe Niall’s time of the month. But then again, he never imagined a lot of things—until Harry came into his life. And now that he’s there, that _they’re_ here, he can feel something _starting_. Something new is brewing, rolling toward them from the horizon, and for one of the first times in centuries, he’s excited to see what’s coming, what’s going to happen. It’s the freest he’s felt since he came back from the dead. All because of Harry.

Things progress like that into summer. They go on more karaoke trips to the city with Niall’s friend Liam, and they take video on their phones to show Zayn later, to make him laugh. Zayn starts drinking his salt water openly and grins like a fool when he realizes that Niall has been putting lemon in it, to make it taste better. They eat less fish and more vegetarian sushi so Zayn can have seaweed. He seems happier than he’s ever been. Despite their best efforts, Zayn disappears more and more frequently, for longer and longer periods of time—family tensions in Atlantis are calling him back, and he can’t say no, even after all this time.

Niall does all kinds of stupid, hilarious things to entertain them—sniffing out Harry’s lost scarf, pretending to track down “prey” when he’s actually just leading them to the pub, and rubbing his head on Harry’s face when he least expects it because he knows how much the shedding gets on his nerves. “You’re lucky I love you,” Harry grumbles, caving and scratching his head, which is what he secretly wants all along.

The biggest changes, however, are in Louis and Harry.

The house shifts, changing to accommodate its growing curiosities. Harry puts up new, darker curtains. Louis gets up earlier as a result, to spend time with them. He can finally, _finally_ , be honest about not being able to eat human food (his body can’t process it), about needing to stay indoors almost all the time (for obvious reasons), about the wealth he’s accumulated over the millennium that allows him to remain jobless and still help out with rent and bills.

When he has to field their hundreds of questions, he can be as honest as he needs to be. There’s no more hiding and it awakens something inside of him, lets it out into the world, and it shows. Frequently Harry tells Louis how good he looks, how much he _glows_ , how alive and happy he looks. Louis can’t exactly verify this, as he has no idea what he looks like anymore (and only cuts his hair with Zayn’s help), but he likes that Harry sees that in him. It’s the best feeling in the world when someone sees the best in you, even knowing you haven’t always been like that. And he is happy, for one of the first times in what feels like forever. Overwhelmingly, there’s a summer happiness that settles over the house.

Louis is almost entirely sure that a majority of it comes from Harry. If anyone is relieved to be out of the closet, so to speak, it’s him. He goes from one to six hundred miles per hour in about five seconds, exuberant and magical and bright, with absolutely _no chill_. He floats everywhere, dancing in the air, twirling beautifully. He snaps his fingers and does everything. Louis will wake up in the evening and come into the sitting room to a scene from _Fantasia:_ Brooms sweeping, feathers dusting the mantelpiece, a stick of sage cleansing the air. Once or twice, he’s been hit by books zooming through the air to re-shelve themselves, but they always apologize with a gentle nudge. Flowers grow that shouldn’t in their climate and time of the year, candles burn at all times filling the house with a sweet smell, and a thin sheen of sparkling dust, nearly impossible to detect, hangs over everything, leftover residue of Harry’s magic.

“He’s dead useful,” Niall tells Louis one night when he walks into the kitchen to see them conducting a symphony of pots and pans, shakers salting food of their own accord, spoons stirring, knives slicing vegetables and dumping them into bowls, flames flickering happily. Through it all, Harry’s record player floats above them near the overhead lights, Patsy Cline crooning, “ _You belong to me…_ ”

Every day, Harry goes out of his way to make their world, their lives, a brighter place. It’s as if, knowing now what they’ve all been through, he’s made it his personal mission to try and erase it here in the present. There are rainbows that appear in the sitting room at random, the twittering of birds and humming of bees that wakes them up in the mornings instead of their alarms, the soft music that follows them to work to make sure they’re in a good mood. There are constant cupcakes, cups of tea, and waterproof clouds to sit on after a long day. There’s music and wind chimes and laughter. There’s happiness and home.

If anything, the truth brings them all closer. But there are the other moments, too, the moments that leave them raw and reeling.

They go out on the next full moon to “play” as Harry suggests, but the night starts with Harry finally witnesses Niall’s change—and he’s horrified. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but it wasn’t this. The night is alive with the dry-branch cracking of bones, the cardboard-ripping of his insides. Niall falls to his knees, on all fours, letting out gut-wrenching screams at the ground and Harry can’t stand it; he sinks to the ground next to Niall, holding his hands over him. He can’t pull the pain out of him, it’s just too heavy for him to hold, but he _can_ put a shield around Niall and try to help. It’s a giant bubble, crystal ball encircling the two of them on the ground of the woods. Louis joins them, passing through the energy of the bubble easily. He puts his hand on Niall’s shoulder through the change, until his skin turns to fur and the two of them are laying against a wolf, its sides heaving with the effort of its breath.

The forest goes quiet.

They lay there together for a few minutes, until Harry can feel Niall squirming beneath them. Then Niall clambers to his feet, shaking him off, and it’s like the freedom of everything all at once. There’s no more pain, just the blissful realization that he can run and howl and taste and let the wind stream through his fur, tethered to nothing but the sweet earth and the wheeling stars and the glorious moon, full and alive overhead in a break of the clouds.

Harry lets out a dazed laugh. Niall throws his head back and howls, the sound splitting the silence. Harry laughs again and joins him. Louis watches them, amazed, before he laughs and howls too. Soon enough, they’re all doing it, crouched on their knees, heads thrown back in wild exultation of the moon and trees, of the wind and stars, of the clouds and each other. Harry throws himself back in the grass, holding onto it to keep himself anchored as Niall goes running; he’s almost afraid he’ll fall off the earth with all these feelings running through him with no thought of stopping.

So they play their games. Harry shows Louis the flowers he was picking the first night he saw Niall in the woods, the night-blooming gladiolus, and Louis strokes their petals thoughtfully. Niall dances in circles chasing his tail while Louis tells Harry scary stories that were popular in his youth, and they play hide and seek among the undergrowth, Louis’ eyes making him the best player in the game, but he lets Harry win once or twice to make him feel better about it.

The night ends in a game of supernatural hide and seek with Harry floating from tree to tree, and Louis becoming mist to avoid Niall’s incredible sense of smell and sight. They end the night breathless with laughter, the three of them laying in the grass of the field beside their house, watching the sky turn from black to indigo, to dusky purple and rose.

Louis’ skin itches, but he doesn’t want to move, doesn’t want to shatter this moment.

Harry is holding his hand and his fingers tighten. “Lou, you’ve got to go,” he says hoarsely.

He shakes his head. “Wait, just…just give me a second. Just one moment more.” There’s a lump in his throat and he finds he’s actually really emotional, his chest aching, even without a beating heart. That’s the thing they never tell you about being a vampire: how much you’ll miss the sight of the sun filtering through the leaves of trees, how you’ll miss the warm breeze on your face, and the endless blue sky. How you’ll miss flowers and diurnal animals and _life._

He did a good a job of pushing it down, pretending it didn’t ache as much as it did, but now Harry’s here and it’s coming back up again, reminding him all over of what he’s lost, what he can’t do. Because he wants this, wants to sit here with Harry’s hand in his and let the sun wash over them both, let it touch their skin and turn it to gold. He wants to see the colors of the sky wash over his face and sparkle his eyes.  He wants to see Harry in the light of a burning star.

But he _can’t_. And it’s killing him, more than the sun ever could.

A whispering, jingling sound fills the air and there’s a pop, like a cartoon bubble—and suddenly he’s in the sitting room at home, surrounded by dark furniture and even darker curtains. He stares around, open-mouthed, for a solid few minutes before he hears the footsteps on the porch outside. He takes two steps forward before he remembers, swallowing hard. If he opens that door, he’s dust.

Instead, he stands aside, letting Harry and a yawning Niall walk in. Niall’s got leaves in his hair, as usual, and Harry’s got feathers woven into his curls like he wants them there. When he sees Louis looking at them, he smiles.

“The birds gave them to me just now. Larks are usually the nicest and you don’t even have to ask, but some of those jays are quite picky.”

Louis just shakes his head. “You _magicked_ me inside!”

“Yes, I did.” A stubborn look flits over Harry’s face. “And I’d do it again.”

“You—you _made_ me turn into mist, and transported me inside.”

Harry thinks about it for a second, and then nods. “Yes.”

“You can do that? Make people do things?”

“Well, it’s just a matter of shifting your energy around. Like yours, it’s about breaking it down to a molecular level.”

“But you could do anybody?”

“Probably. For instance, I could make Niall turn into his wolf form, if I wanted.”

The blood rushes out of Niall’s face so quickly that he wobbles on his feet, reaching out to grab the back of the nearby armchair. “Christ,” he breathes. “That’s…you could…” He quickly sits down in it, putting his head between his knees. He takes deep breaths through his nose.

Harry’s eyes are wide and he’s shaking his head. “I—I _wouldn’t_ , Niall, I know what it puts you through!”

“You just did it to Louis!”

“To protect him,” Harry says. The blood’s going out of his face, too. Soon, they’ll all look like Louis, bloodless as corpses. “The sun was coming up, Ni, what did you want me to do?”

“Conjure up an umbrella? I dunno.”

Harry holds up his hands, looking visibly shaken. “Okay, I promise to never do it again without your permission. I’m sorry, I was just trying to help.”

“It’s okay—” Louis says, reaching for Harry, but he pulls away from him. Louis freezes in place. Harry’s never done that before, and he knows it isn’t because of _him_ , but it takes him all the way back to every other connection he’s tried to form throughout his long life—when people find out about him, it’s what they _do_ , it’s a natural reaction, but right now it goes cutting through him to his core.

Just like that, the morning is broken open and cold. The sun might be shining outside, but it’s pitch dark in their sitting room, the curtains pulled tight against the light. Nobody says anything for a long time and eventually, they all go their separate ways.

Later, in the mid-afternoon, Louis wakes up to a form wiggling into his bed. Harry presses up against him, warm from being outside. He smells, not unpleasant, but _different_ —he smells like antiseptic from the vet’s office. He was at work, then. Must’ve just got home. Louis dimly remembers their all-night escapade and wonders how he’s even awake.

“Lou,” Harry says. Despite the summer sun, his teeth are chattering. “ _Louis_.”

Louis rolls over immediately at the insistent tug of Harry’s voice. “What, love? What’s wrong?”

“I had to leave early. I couldn’t stop thinking about it.”

“What?”

“Niall, this morning. You weren’t really upset, were you? I’d hate if—I couldn’t stand it—”

“Harry, _no._ ” He gathers Harry up in his arms. “No, baby, I wasn’t mad. Just…I didn’t know you could do that! We knew you were powerful, but we didn’t exactly know how much.”

“He was _scared_ of me,” Harry whispers against Louis’ throat. “Niall. He was afraid.”

“It wasn’t you.”

“It was, I—”

“It _wasn’t_. Niall’s been on this earth for a good deal longer than you, but he’s still young for his type, y’know? And this thing he’s got…it still terrifies him every day. You’ve got to understand where he’s coming from, love. He’s a wolf without a pack. He’s got no one who properly understands what it’s like. He has to go through it all alone.”

“He doesn’t, though. He’s got us.”

“Yeah, I’ve been telling him that about me for years. Because it’s different when we don’t know what it is. Like, try to imagine it from his point of view. The loss of control, the raging _beast_ in him. He can barely keep it leashed on a good day. And the change…” Louis shudders. With how long he’s walked the earth, has seen his fair share of atrocities, but nothing like _that_. And he has to watch it again and again and again.

“It was…” Harry shakes his head. “I can understand why he’s scared.”

“Exactly. And he has to do it up to nine times a month, one for each change, one for each change back. And his entire life revolves around this. Like even if it’s not the full moon, it’s all he’s thinking about, counting down the days, trying to prepare himself.”

“I…I didn’t know it was so bad.” There’s a brief pause, and then Harry says, “That’s not true. I _did_ know. I remember. When we were all coming clean? He didn’t want to talk about it. He closed himself off when we were asking about what happens to his body, and his aura…I’ve never seen it dim before, Lou, and right then it did. It went all dark and murky.”

Louis nods. “It’s a very tense subject with him.”

“I’m sorry,” Harry says softly, the words alive against Louis’ skin. “I’m so sorry. I’ll tell him.”

“Okay. Rest now, baby. You’re exhausted.” Louis pets Harry’s hair, calming him back down. The fact that it was bothering him all day bothers Louis in turn immensely; he should never have let Harry go that morning, he should have stayed and talked to him. But in his defense, the only person he’s had for the last hundred years is Niall; it’s still a work in progress, all of this, all of them.

But he’s learned what not to do now, what to do next time. Trial and error.

Harry falls asleep next to him and they sleep through the afternoon, curved into each other, around each other. Harry snores softly when he’s his most tired and it’s the cutest thing Louis’ ever heard; he has to stay awake and listen, just for a little while. He stays awake and holds his face to Harry’s back, too, to listen to his steady, deep heartbeat; the slow pull of his lungs; the rushing zing of his blood through his veins. It’s like a lullaby, and Louis sleeps his best in a long time.

Of course, when he wakes up, it’s to Harry flopping over and elbowing him in the face, but it’s okay because it’s Harry, and he’s in Louis’ _bed_ , and he’s starting to think he might have never been more in love.

He wakes Harry up with a kiss an hour or so before sundown, and it starts out innocent enough, quick and quiet, just a brush of lips against his. But then he has to touch, trailing his fingers over Harry’s face, his eyelids and lashes, the curve of his cheeks and slope of his nose, the fullness of his mouth. Harry parts his lips and the tip of his tongue touches Louis’ index finger and it’s like a bolt of lightning to his spine.

Everything about Harry is so soft, so warm and plying beneath Louis’ hands. He cups his chin, his fingers splayed on Harry’s neck, fingertips tracing the edges of his jaw. “You’re so beautiful,” he murmurs, nuzzling into Harry’s neck, wanting their skin to touch everywhere. “How are you real?”

Harry’s eyes open just barely and he smiles, wrapping his arms around Louis to pull him in closer. Louis kisses the corner of his mouth, his chin and jaw, as Harry laughs quietly. “What time is it?” he asks.

“Time for you to get a watch.”

Harry laughs even harder at that and Louis wants to taste the smile on his mouth; he leans in, kissing him again, cupping his face. Harry runs his hands down Louis’ shoulders, tracing circles and swirls on his lower back, and there’s a tingling there that makes Louis think he’s traced some kind of sigils onto the surface of his skin for a spell, but he doesn’t think about it too much because Harry is purring beneath him and _that_ is the most important thing. Louis licks into his mouth and he can taste his breath, can taste each magnetic beat of his heart.

Harry arches and Louis grabs Harry’s hips, digging in his fingers. Harry moans softly, breaking away to pant against Louis’ ear. Harry's neck is right there and Louis can _see_ his pulse going under his skin, he can taste the sharpness of his racing blood in the air, and he bends closer to press his face to the skin, to feel the cadence of him. Harry presses his hips against Louis’ and the friction is merciless and _killing him;_ he inhales against Harry’s neck, opening his mouth instinctively—

 “Wait,” Louis says, breaking away from him, gasping. “Wait, hold on. We can’t.”

“Can’t we?”

“No,” Louis says, grabbing Harry by the wrist.

Harry gasps in his ear. “No?”

“Stop repeating everything I say.”

“Why can’t we?” Harry kisses him with an open mouth, his breath mingling with Louis’, and for a moment Louis forgets what they were talking about.

“Because,” he manages. “I just…I can’t.”

“ _You_ can’t?” Finally, Harry pulls away from Louis to look him in the eyes. His curls are mussed, his lips shiny. “What does that mean, Louis?”

“It means…” _It means I don’t trust myself. It means I’m scared I’ll hurt you, I’ll rip you open, eat your heart, drink you dry. I’m scared of how I feel around you. I’m scared of losing control._ All of these dance on the tip of his tongue, and he almost says them, but he can’t. Because he wants very badly to open the pale skin of Harry’s delicate throat and drink from his veins. He wants to taste the magic swimming within. He wants to claim Harry’s body with his mouth.

But he also doesn’t want to scare him. There’s enough of that going around as it is.

Before he can answer, there’s a loud knock on the door. Harry struggles to pull himself out of Louis’ grip, but he gets tangled in the blankets and falls half out of bed with a squeak and a thump. The door opens as Harry sits up, still tangled, his hair pink as a rose. On the bed, Louis holding his sides, convulsing with silent laughter, everything else forgotten. 

Niall’s eyes skip over them, before he winces and closes his eyes. “Christ. You’ve got clothes on, yeah?”

“’Course we have,” Louis says when he can breathe again, wiping at his eyes. “We were just napping.”

“Uh- _huh_.” Tentatively, Niall peeks. When he’s assured they are in fact _not_ naked, he says, “You’ve got to come to the kitchen.”

“Why?”

Niall looks at them like it’s obvious. “We’re makin’ pizza. Duh.”

“Since when?”

“Since right now, let’s go.” 

Louis’ still a little incensed by all the kissing and he visibly twitches. Louis glances at Harry, who has sobered considerably in the last few seconds. His hair is nut brown all over again.

“Erm, hang on a second, Niall. I wanted to talk to you about before,” Harry says, climbing out of the nest of blankets. “I’m sorry about this morning. I didn’t mean to scare you in anyway—”

Niall folds his arms over his chest, sputtering. “ _Scare_ me?” He scoffs. “You didn’t _scare_ me. I was just…tired.”

“Don’t be a prick, Ni,” Louis says. He knows they all have issues, but this pseudo-masculinity thing in the face of fear and danger was old two centuries ago. Harry genuinely wants to help; they all do.

“Well, what do you want me to say?” Niall snaps. He lets his arms drop to his sides, clenching his fists.

“You could try being honest.”

“Says you.” He turns to Harry. “It’s fine. You were just trying to help. It doesn’t matter.”

“It _does_ matter.” Harry takes a lurching step forward, reaching out with one hand. “It matters to me.” He gestures to Louis. “It matters to all of us.”

Niall stares at Harry’s outstretched hand for a long moment. Finally, he shakes his head. He takes Harry’s hand, lets himself be pulled in for a hug. “Okay,” he grumbles over Harry’s shoulder. “I was scared. Like, I know you wouldn’t but—the thought is still _there_ , you know? You _can_. You’re _capable_. And it’s like, just something to get used to.”

“If you ever have any questions, you can come to me.” They part but Harry keeps his hands on Niall’s shoulders, leveling an even gaze at him. “You know that right? I want to make sure nothing I do ever scares you. This whole thing—it’s a lot to take in. So I want to help.”

Niall nods. “I get that. I’m sorry if it like, upset you.”

“Are you kidding? I was worried about you!”

Niall smiles at that. “Well, you don’t have to! I’ll be fine. I always am.”

“Good. But maybe we should make up some house rules. Like, no using powers on each other without their permission?” Harry glances back and forth between.

“That’s a good idea. Like what are you thinking? No blood-sucking in front of guests?” Louis means it as a joke, but Harry gets a particularly thoughtful look on his face that has Louis infinitely curious as to what’s going on in his head.

Harry opens his mouth, but the front door opens and slams shut before he can speak. “’lo?” Zayn calls. “’m home, where is everybody? I brought seashells!” His keys clang into the bowl Harry put out for them and Louis can hear him setting down something sturdy in the sitting room. He rummages around, going through his mail, tromping into the kitchen to hunt down some food.

“Excellent, he’s right on time for pizza,” Niall announces happily, clapping his hands together. He vanishes just as quickly as he arrived.

Harry lets out a breath, shoulders relaxed. “Well, that was easy.”

“That’s Niall for you.”

“I’ve _got_ to figure out that wolfsbane potion for him. If only it wasn’t so difficult.” Harry taps his chin. “I suppose I could steep the white willow bark for longer, but _ugh_ , it smells—”

“What about lavender? You use that a lot, yeah?”

“Lavender?” Harry looks at Louis for a second, considering. “Hm. That could work. That’s not a bad idea, Lou.”

Louis ruffles his curls, loving the way his stomach tumbles every time he touches Harry. “You’re welcome. Now go on, go play and make pizza. I hope it’s delicious.”

Harry’s face falls all at once and he gasps. “Oh, _no_. You can’t eat pizza!”

“I know. It’s possibly the greatest tragedy of my entire life. Like not even the _plague_ compares to the utter nonsense that are my eating limitations.” Louis sits back down, laying horizontally on his bed with his arms under his head. “You know what I really miss? Breakfast. A proper English breakfast is something that breaks my heart every day. I wonder if I could convince Niall to do something like that…”

Harry melts back down onto Louis’ bed in a move that he supposes is meant to look smooth but mostly just makes him want to laugh. “Silly, that’s your bedtime. Breakfast is _now_.”

“Um, excuse me, I’m the oldest of you lot. Therefore, I have no bedtime.”

“Lou, if you even _try_ and stay up, you will turn into a grumpy mess. It’s what always happens.”

Louis digs his fingers into Harry’s sides teasingly. “Well, who always keeps me up?”

“ _Me_ ,” Harry admits, breathless with laughter. He scoots closer, curling his legs around Louis’, the two of them entwined in the mess of blankets.

Louis’ hand on Harry’s shoulder is restless, fingers twirling in circles that send shivers down his back. They remind him of earlier before Niall interrupted them, of how Harry’s hands felt on his back. He wants so badly to keep things going in that direction, but he’s not sure if he can separate sex and his desire to feed. They’re so closely related that the lines _blur_ —and that’s the last thing he wants to subject Harry to.

But it’s like Harry can read his mind. “Lou, can I ask you something?”

“Always.”

He clears his throat. “It’s kind of personal.”

“Even better.”

“Um. How long has it been since you, uh.” He nestles his head against Louis’ chest. “Well, you know, earlier things were—and you said you _can’t_ , so I was just wondering if you…can? If it’s possible? For science,” he clarifies. “For scientific supernatural reasons. Your biology is so different, it’s—

“Harry, are you asking me how long it’s been since I got a leg over?”

Harry wrinkles his nose. “That’s such a _Niall_ expression.”

“Hey, you’re the one busy making potions for him.” Louis wraps an arm around Harry. “But to answer your question, it’s been a good long while.”

“A good long while,” Harry repeats. “ _A good long while_ is something my mum would say about me not coming home enough.”

“That too, funny enough. I haven’t seen my mum in years.”

“ _Louis_.”

“Oh, all right. Not since the 1600s, then. I just…I dunno, lost interest. The longer you live, the harder it is to make those connections, to find meaning in it all.”

 _Four hundred years._ Harry's eyes practically cross, his pupils turning to little x's. “So, uh. Does that mean you can’t—?” Harry trails off, raising his eyebrows.

“No, I can.” Louis tilts his head. “Sort of.”

“Sort of?” Harry’s voice goes an octave higher.

“Well, it’s kind of hard to explain. My biology, like you said, is a lot different than yours. Blood goes to your cock and you’re hard, yeah? But I don’t have blood that occurs naturally. No beating heart and all that. Hence why we drink it. It acts as like a pseudo-heartbeat. Floods the system like fuel. So that’s why I get warmer, cheeks get pink. My cells absorb the blood and use it to sustain themselves for a time, so during those times, sex is possible. If I’m on empty, no way. The first time I found that out was memorable, let me tell you.” He laughs at that and then shrugs. “I ought to be drinking it more often than I do—’s why my eyes are so dry all the time—but I try to keep it less noticeable than that.”

“Louis,” Harry says, a scolding tone bleeding into his voice. “Are you telling me that you’re only doing the minimum to get by?”

“Erm. Yes?” _Oh no,_ he thinks. _I’m about to be scolded._ “I swear I’ve told you this. There’s that blood tech, the guy a county over—”

Harry drops his head back down onto Louis’ chest. “ _Louis_.”

“It’s fine, Harold, it’s been working for me for decades now—”

Harry looks up again. “Decades? Decades of you counting blood calories?”

Louis’ mouth twists. “I’m…not really sure that’s how it works, love.”

“Can you get more from the clinic?”

“Probably not. I think that would be too noticeable. Plus, I have to be careful. Bad blood, you know? Gotta stay away from all that. I’ve had to do what I need to, for survival. It’s not easy, but it _works_.”

“It’s not _healthy_.”

“I’ve got no other choice, love.”

“Of course you do.” Harry props himself up, chin in his hand. “You’ve got me.”

Louis doesn’t react at first. He stays where he is, motionless save for the eyebrows slowly sinking down into a frown. Then he levers himself up on his elbows, looking at Harry. “I seriously hope that was one of your amazing unfunny jokes.”

“It’s not! It makes perfect sense, Louis. You need blood on a much more frequent basis than what you’re doing now for you to be peak, right? Niall tastes funny, you said so yourself when you met. Zayn probably tastes like fish or something and he’s never around anymore, so that leaves me. As long as I stay healthy—which, let’s be honest, I always am—and take care of myself, as I always do, then I’m the prime donor. How often would you need it?”

“I—I don’t want to talk about this,” Louis mumbles, shaking his head. He sits up, pulling away from Harry.

“But Louis, you need this. And I want you to have this, from me.”

If his heart could beat, it’d be racing. “Harry, you don’t know what you’re asking. It’s too dangerous!”

Harry points out at the sitting room. “We live with a werewolf and a siren. They’re _dangerous_ too, but we’re still here. _I’m_ still here.” He shakes his head, big doe eyes confused. “Why won’t you let me help you?”

“Because. I just. I can’t let you.”

“Why?” Harry sits up, one hand on Louis’ chest. “Louis, _talk to me_. Why can’t you? It’s no different than me making the potion for Niall, than me keeping Zayn’s secrets. It’s to keep you safe, too. Why won’t you let me?”

“Because I’m afraid to, all right?” Louis runs a quick hand through his hair. “It’s been so long since I’ve had someone, a person to drink from, and I’m not sure what it’ll be like. I’m terrified I’ll hurt you, that I’ll lose control and—and maybe kill you. Okay?”

“You wouldn’t,” Harry says immediately, inching closer. He cups Louis’ face, kisses his chin. “You wouldn’t, Louis, you wouldn’t hurt me,” he murmurs, kissing Louis’ face gently in all his sharp places, cheekbones and eyebrows, chin and jaw. “I trust you. Don’t you know that by now?”

“I want to, but I just—”

There’s a loud clanging sound from the kitchen, followed by some yelping and the mad beeping of the smoke alarm.

“All hands on deck,” Niall says loudly, coughing, “Our pizza’s dying!”

 “Aren’t you supposed to be a proper trained chef?” Zayn yells, coughing as well.

The distinct smell of something burning reaches Louis’ nose. He makes a face.

“Harry, get out here, we need you!” Niall shouts.

“He’s so bossy,” Harry huffs and just like that, everything’s back to normal, smiles and laughter and pizza-making. Louis wishes it could be this, just this, all the time.

Harry sighs, rolling off the bed to standing. “Let me go see what those two are destroying now. And Louis?” He looks back from Louis’ doorway. “You know we do have to talk about it, right? The blood thing. Like, it’s always going to come back. There’s no way to get away from it. It’s who you are.”

Louis nods. “Trust me, I know.”

* * *

That night is Niall’s last night of the full moon, and the four of them traipse out to the woods after having only slightly-burnt pizza. Harry uses magic to guide Niall through his change, but it’s not as effective as he would’ve liked. He spends the first hour of the night gathering herbs to try and perfect the formula, to try anything new, anything he can get his hands on.

The night is heavy with the promise of rain, just like the night before, the humidity making Harry’s sheer floral-print shirt stick to his back. Louis is playing with Niall, sending him chasing after clouds of mist, while Harry braids the stems of herbs and flowers together into a bouquet, Zayn reclining on a log next to him.

“I got you something,” Zayn says, reaching into his pocket. He pulls out a shell, white on the outside and a shiny, pretty pink on the inside. “It’s a murex shell.”

“It’s so pretty,” Harry says, eyes wide. He holds it up to his ear, listening to the whistle of air within. “What’s it for?”

“For you! To use, if you need to. It’s magic, see? You can put messages inside, whisper to it, and it’ll come to me in the ocean. Don’t ask how, it’s a siren and mermaid secret. But I’ll get your messages and be able to reply! You just have to check back for it on the beach a few days later.”

“That’s _amazing_. Are you sure you can’t tell me? Because—”

“Harry.”

“I know, but—that caliber of magic—” Zayn raises his eyebrows and Harry lets out a breath. “Okay, okay, I’ll stop asking. It would be for _science_ , though!”

“I know, but you know the rules.”

“Yeah, bound by the ocean’s oath, I know.” Suddenly, Harry has a horrible feeling, a cold creeping down his back. Why else would Zayn give him this particular gift, at this particular time? “Erm, how are things going in Atlantis, with your family?”

“They’re…going well.”

Harry looks at Zayn. He’s always been rubbish at lying, and Harry has known him for years now, for what feels like a lifetime. “You’re leaving, aren’t you?”

Zayn looks down at his hands, at the dirt and ferns below his feet. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “Yeah, I’ve got to go.”

Harry can't answer for a solid minute, the realization crashing down around him that Zayn is going to be gone, that he's leaving and that's reality now, there's nothing he can do to stop it. “I just— _why_?”

“Remember how I mentioned they’ve been fighting over a new Sea King?” Zayn shrugs. “Well, they’ve elected my dad. He’s in, and that means I have to go back. Show up for appearances and proper shit like that. It’s not for forever, y’know? But for a while.” He shakes his head. “I’m like…a _prince_ now. How fucked up weird is that?”

“So weird. I mean, I'm sure you'll be a good prince and all that but to me you're just Zayn. You know?" 

He nods. “Right, like who knew? I just hope this is a good thing.”

“When are you leaving?”

“In a few days. I wanted to tell you lot about it, pack up my things.”

“We can…we can hang onto them for you!”

“Thanks. I’m sorry this is so sudden, but it’s like—”

“Yeah, I know. You don’t—you haven’t really got a choice, have you?”

Zayn shakes his head. He reaches over, ruffling Harry’s hair. “We had some good years, though, yeah? All sorts of adventures. And loads more. Because it’s not goodbye, it’s just see you later. You know?”

“Yeah, I know, I just…I’m going to miss you.”

Zayn leans over, wrapping an arm around Harry’s shoulders and pulling him in. “Aw, c’mon, lad. You’ll be okay. You’ve got Niall and Lou with you, now. And that’s why I brought you that shell! So we can always stay in contact. I’ll always be there, you know? No matter what.” Zayn presses a kiss to the top of Harry’s head. “You’re my best mate, Harreh. I had the best years of my life playing human with you. I love you.”

There’s a knock against a tree trunk from several feet away. It's Louis, looking somewhat concerned. “Hey. You two all right?”

“Yeah,” Harry says, nodding as Zayn releases him.

Zayn stands, glancing between the two of them. He jerks his thumb in the direction of the woods beyond them. “I, uh…I’m gonna pop off for a wee.”

“Yeah, you do that," Louis says, watching him go. "Yell if Niall tries to kill you!”

“Yeah, sure,” Zayn calls back, rolling his eyes.

Harry sets the shell down in his lap, pressing the heels of his hands over his eyes. They burn with tears at the helplessness, at the realization that his best friend for the past seven years is _leaving_ him, is going away for an indefinite amount of time and there’s nothing he can do to stop it. And of course, it’s not permanent, and it probably won’t last, but that doesn’t make it sting any less in the moment. Zayn is leaving him, leaving them, for an unknown future—so where does that leave them?

He feels motion at his side, the softness of Louis’ clothes brushing him, and the warmth of his body. He just fed the day before; he’s still glowing. “Babe, is everything all right? What did I just walk into?”

“Zayn,” Harry manages, letting out a rattling breath. “He’s leaving.”

Louis is quiet. “I knew this day would come,” he says softly. “As soon as he mentioned all the tensions in Atlantis, I could see it coming. Harry, I’m so sorry.”

He holds an arm out for Harry to sink into and Harry does, pressing his face into Louis’ shoulder. He cries for a few minutes while Louis strokes his hair and his neck, his shoulders and cheek. He murmurs things to Harry, but Harry can’t hear him, can’t understand him. He’s speaking a language Harry doesn’t know.

Finally, Harry takes a deep breath, leaning back. Louis hands him an old-timey handkerchief from inside his pocket and Harry blows his nose daintily, sniffling as he hands it back. Louis folds it up into a tiny square and puts it back in his pocket. “Okay?”

Harry shrugs. “Not really, but better.” He shakes his head. “It’s like…I always knew it was possible, that he’d have to go back, but not that I’d ever have to confront it when it happened. I just can’t believe this is happening, now. In the middle of all this."

Louis starts to say something, but there’s a yelp in the distance. Instead, he frowns, tilting his head. “Did you hear that?”

Harry nods, biting his lip.

Then there’s a shout. They’re up and running in an instant, Louis taking Harry’s hand as they dart through the trees. They find Zayn several yards into the treeline, a massive, furry form on top of him. He’s shrieking and Harry is jolted with a momentary zing of panic until he realizes the furry idiot on top is Niall. Zayn is laughing, pushing at Niall’s large face to get him stop _licking him, dammit_ , and Louis rolls his eyes.

“We thought you were being _murdered_ , you wanker.”

“I am—help—” he says weakly, laughing so hard he’s nearly crying. “Niall, I’m serious—get _off_ me, you big piece of fluffy shit, I’m warning you—”

Niall collapses down onto Zayn’s chest and all the air goes out of him in a great _whoosh_ of breath. And then Zayn _is_ crying, arms wrapped around a _werewolf_ of all things, and Niall is licking his face but it doesn’t help, it doesn’t stop the flow.

Harry sinks down beside them and Louis follows suit. The four of them lay together, woven together like a celtic knot, like a sigil of safety, of home and happiness and love. Harry’s going to miss this. For so long, it’s felt like they were meant to be here, the pieces that make up their perfect puzzle. But what’s going to happen when one of their pieces is missing? They’re the four winds, the four elements, the oceans and directions. How are they meant to hold up their world without him?

There is crying in stops and starts, in trails and turns. They try to talk, but they peter out with that too, like a candle’s flame guttering out. So, after hours of just laying with each other, each of them touching the other for security, for sanity, they get up. Louis is first. Then Zayn. Then Harry, whom they help up, each of them offering a hand. Niall follows, clambering to all four of his feet.

Then they’re running, fast and as fierce as they can, legs pumping, hearts pounding with the exuberance of being alive, of being together, a mismatched pack howling and whooping at the moon, dancing in twirls beneath the stormy sky. This could be the last time, they _have_ to do it. The air tastes like rain, like the love flowing between them.

Thunder cracks the sky in half. Rain comes drizzling down, spattering between the trees, and that _really_ sets them off. They dance to music only they can hear, claiming the night as _theirs_.

When the morning comes, the four of them traipse back through the field, arms around each other. Harry drapes his sweater over Louis’ head and arms to protect him, the other two shielding him. Niall they help walk, too; he’s limping after the change and the activities of the night before. They support each other all the way back, until they make it through the front door and shut it quietly behind them.

Harry cradles the shell in his hands in Louis’ bed, cupping it against his chest. Louis lays down opposite him, laying on his side to look at him. He gently strokes Harry’s forehead and cheeks, trailing a finger up and down his nose.

“The last shell he gave me,” Harry says, rubbing the ridges of the murex shell. “It was a type of clam shell. You know what it was called?”

Louis shakes his head.

“Bittersweet,” he says softly. 

Just before Harry drifts off, he hears music. Singing. “Lou, do you hear that?”

Louis shifts, nodding beside him. “’S Zayn,” he says quietly. “He’s singing to Niall, to soothe him. Singing ’im to sleep.”

 _Sing me to sleep_ , Morrissey croons in Harry’s head. _Sing me to sleep, I’m tired and I want to go to bed…_

With that, the spell settles over all of them, like in the fairytales, like in the stories—and Harry knows, everything after this is going to change. 

Zayn packs up all his things in boxes during the day while they sleep, leaving Remus the fish for them to watch over, like Harry promised he would. They wake in time to help him finish, the four of them talking and laughing like it’s normal, like they’re not about to say goodbye.

They drive Zayn out to the beach afterward, Louis covered in a hoodie and holding one of Zayn’s parasols. Keep it, he said. They’re keeping a lot of his things, it seems, little pieces of him left behind. They say goodbye, hugs and kisses in turns. And then he’s wading away, swimming out, dark head dipping and raising, disappearing under the water.

Seagulls cry from somewhere down the shore as the three of them sit in a line together, faces to the wind. Clouds gather against the horizon and it’s quiet, just water rushing in and water rushing out.

Harry blinks against the sparkling stream of weak sun on the waves’ surface, and Zayn’s gone.

* * *

_  
July_

The summer days pass in a summer haze.

It doesn’t feel real. Every day, Harry comes home from the shops or work, expecting to find Zayn sitting on the couch playing FIFA with Niall, or reading a book, or scribbling in his sketchbook. But there’s just nothing, he’s gone. They’ve put all his things into storage for him, all his Aquaman comics, all his shells and shiny stones, all his sketching pencils and paintbrushes. Harry finds a scale of his left behind on the floor when he’s cleaning one day and he pockets it. He considers making a single earring out of it, but in the end, it just sits in a tiny box on his dresser, glimmering faintly in the light.

The mural Zayn started in Louis’ room sits unfinished. It’s a single wall of stars in a night sky, the rest of it just a deep, dark blue. Nobody wants to touch it. Nobody wants to put anymore stars in the blue.

The house is quieter. Niall loses some of that shine of his for a while. He and Zayn were getting close, almost like Harry and Zayn. Everything feels fractured and incomplete. The picture of them still sits in a frame on the mantelpiece, but it’s gathering dust and none of them want to look at it.

Harry talks to him via the shell, but it’s slow and Zayn’s busy learning protocols and rules, and everything feels like it’s stretching on forever, terrible and sad.

One day, when Harry and Louis are cuddling on the sofa, Niall plops down on the coffee table in front of them. “Niall,” Louis remarks crossly. “I don’t know if you know this, but you’re _blocking the telly._ ”

“I know I am. I’ve got something to say, so shut up and pay attention.” He folds his arms over his chest. “We need to do something.”

Louis raises his eyebrows. “Excuse me?”

“We need to _do_ something,” he says, even louder, flapping his arms. “It’s been a _month_ that we’ve been moping and we’re all just sitting on our asses, being sad and shit, when we should be… _not_ doing that because he’s not fucking dead, he just moved back home!” Niall claps his hands. “Like, _come on,_ lads! Can we please—”

“Niall, we talked about going out like, five minutes ago,” Harry says. “Were you not listening?”

Niall stops, stares. “What?”

“You were in the kitchen. What were you doing?”

“Not listening, obviously,” Louis chimes in. “Harry just shouted, ‘Ni, how do you feel about London this weekend?’ and you shouted back, ‘Yeah!’”

“Of _course_ I didn’t fucking hear him, he’s the Queen of Mumblers! _Yeah_ is my default response for everything, Louis, you should know this by now.” He stands, smoothing his shirt down. “But okay. Good. London, this weekend. I’ll give Liam a ring, yeah?”

“Yeah, do,” Harry says, nodding. “It might be nice to—”

“—just maybe spend time with other people—” Louis agrees.

“Yeah, just to like—”

“—get out of this slump, or whatever you call it,” Louis finishes. “Absolutely. We could all use it.”

They’re not _just_ going to go out, though, Harry clearly reminds them on the train in. Harry is there to meet with his mum and get her help on the wolfsbane potion, which he _still_ hasn’t figured out; luckily, he’s got time, as the full moon is still a full fortnight away. She’s always been the top at potions, like Gemma is at reading tarot, so he’s hoping she can steer him in the right direction because every other try he’s given it has ended in abysmal _failure_. Also there’s another thing he wants to do, but that’s a secret—even from Louis.

They haven’t talked about Louis drinking from Harry since the last time, too caught up in the confusion and unbalance of the household in the wake of Zayn’s departure, and it’s for the best. Nothing kills the mood like a friend moving away, not to mention the moralities and complexities of drinking blood and being fed upon. It’s a topic that can wait. Harry knows it’s a big deal for Louis, and he wants him to have as much time as he needs to get used to the idea of it.

They get to London in the middle of the afternoon, Louis bundled up in joggers and a hoodie over his soft hair, sunglasses shading his eyes from what little sun there is. Rain drizzles down for about twenty minutes, and he and Harry crowd underneath an umbrella, Niall following them with a sour look on his face, holding his backpack over his head. “No, it’s fine, don’t worry about me,” he says, rolling his eyes. Harry blows him a kiss and Louis pops a bubble with his gum, looking entirely uninterested in his plight.

They catch a cab to Liam’s place, where they’re going to stay the night. It’s a modern place with lots of shiny countertops and appliances, his furniture dark wood and leather, but it’s a mess, clothes and shoes strewn about, leftover used plates and half-empty bottles everywhere. “It’s not mine,” Liam insists, apologizing, “my flatmate’s a _slob_.”

“Mine, too,” Niall says, glancing at Louis. Louis doesn’t smile so much as bare his teeth. Harry snickers.

Liam is a pleasant person; Harry has always thought so. A little slow on the uptake sometimes, but genuine and funny, heartfelt and curious, tan and fit (he’s always jogging, which seems to offend Louis on a deep, personal level) with big dark brown eyes and brown hair that’s covered in snapbacks nearly all the time. Needless to say, he and Niall get on particularly well.

“Thanks for letting us stay, lad,” Louis says, flopping down on the couch. “We’ll go out later, yeah?”

“Yeah, I’ve got a half-shift today so I’ll be back around eight. Help yourself to whatever’s in the fridge, my flatmate’s away at his girlfriend’s.”

As soon as Liam leaves, Harry rolls up his sleeves and starts to clean up. “Babe, don’t,” Louis says, but it’s weak, an arm thrown over his eyes. He’s awake too early for his usual routine thanks to their train, and soon enough, Harry knows he’ll be asleep.

“Don’t worry, Lou, Niall’s gonna help me.”

“ _Excuse me_ ,” Niall says, affronted, but he just grins a moment later, because of course he’s going to help Harry.

Sure enough, Louis falls asleep curled up on the couch with his hood pulled up and his face buried in a pillow, while Harry and Niall toss away all the trash and sort the clothes and shoes into more appropriate piles. They get into a soap suds fight doing up the dishes and end up doing the kitchen as well, tossing rolled up paper-towel balls and bottle caps at each other, poking and pinching each other like schoolboys in the yard.

“Are you _quite_ finished,” Louis groans, lifting up a hand to flap in their direction after an hour.

“Yep,” Niall says breathlessly, flopping down in an armchair. “I’m starved. We goin’ out for food tonight?”

“There’ll probably be some at the pub, but that’s not for hours.”

Niall groans, clutching his stomach. “I’m gonna die.”

“You’re a chef, mate. Make yourself something and _shut up_ ,” Louis mutters.

“You know, Louis, I’m not liking this attitude. We’re supposed to be having _fun_ here. We’re supposed to be missing you-know-who less by going out and getting out of our heads.”

Harry frowns. “Voldemort?”

“Shhh,” Louis says, without missing a beat. “You’ll summon him.”

“Oh my god,” Niall says, rolling his eyes. “I really hate you two now that you’re like, a real couple and shit. This is torture.”

“We’re not—I mean—” Harry stutters, blushing. He shakes his head, looking down at his hands, fiddling with one of his many bracelets. “We’re just—”

“Cuddle buddies,” Louis says, completely unhelpfully.

Niall snorts. “Cuddle buddies. An old-ass vampire just said _cuddle buddies_.”

“How about you do something useful—make yourself some food, and stick it in your mouth so we don’t have to hear you anymore.”

“Yeah, yeah. You want some sandwiches?”

“Harry would love some, I’m sure,” Louis says, rolling over to face them, squinting at the overhead lights of the flat’s sitting room. “Right, Harold?”

“Right, yeah,” Harry says, distracted now. That comment from Niall has thrown him completely for a loop and he’s not really sure how to act. He didn’t mean to refute it so fast, because there’s nothing he’d like to do more than be Louis’ boyfriend, but he doesn’t want to add any undue pressure to Louis and what they have, not when he’s already struggling with the idea of allowing him to drink from Harry.

As Niall goes banging around in the kitchen, Louis sits up. “So, just to clarify, we’re…not dating?”

“I’m—I don’t really know, I mean—”

“Uh, to be honest, I don’t either? I haven’t been with someone for four hundred years, I’m a little…” Louis rubs at his eyes, shaking his head at himself, “…out of my element here. So. It’s perfectly fine if we’re not, I just—”

“Is it?” Harry doesn’t want it to be perfectly fine that they’re not dating. Because it’s a problem. He wants to be with Louis every day for the rest of his life, no matter how long that is.

Louis grins ruefully. “Well, no, it’s not. I want to be. Dating you, I mean. With you, I guess is what I _really_ mean, because I would love to take you on dates, but we’re not still in that awkward ‘getting-to-know-each-other’ stage and _dating around_ , we’ve known each other for going on a year now.” His grin widens. “So, to put it simply, I’m saying I want to be your boyfriend.”

Harry has to cover his mouth with both hands to keep the excited squeaking down. He practically melts down into the carpet, into an adorable puddle of Harry goo. “I’m…that works,” he manages, voice high, lowering his hands. “That works for me, yeah.”

Louis wrinkles his nose. “Age difference isn’t too weird?”

“Well, how much are we talking here, exactly?”

“Erm. Let me think…you’re twenty-one?” Harry nods. “Maths was never my strong subject, but let’s see…” He types into the calculator app on his phone. “Gotta love technology, yeah? Okay, um, there’s a one thousand and twenty-seven year difference between us.”

“So you’re…” Harry adds it back in his head. “One thousand forty-eight?”

Louis nods. “Weird?”

“If I was anybody else, maybe. But since I’m _me_ , not really. And hey, maybe I _like_ weird!”

“Well, you must, with Niall for a friend.” Louis’ smile dims just a bit. “And you’re sure you’re okay with this? Completely and honestly ready and fine?”

Harry nods. He’s never been more sure about anything in his entire life, heart fluttering in his chest. “Definitely. I want to be your boyfriend, too.”

Louis’ smile is dazzling, his eyes crinkling. “Wonderful! Come over here and give your boyfriend a kiss, then.” He checks the time on his phone. “Aren’t you leaving soon?”

Harry nods. He’s meeting his mum at a café to discuss his potion problem, and maybe a couple of other things, things he hasn’t told Louis or Niall about because he wants to be sure. He _has_ to be sure.

He slinks out of his chair and over to Louis, bending down to press a kiss to his mouth. Louis’ fingers are still pleasantly warm on his chin; he won’t need to feed for another few days. Hopefully, with this new change in their relationship status, he won’t mind doing it with Harry. _It’s not weird_ , he tells himself. _He looks like he wants to eat me the rest of the time, anyway; he may as well._ That causes a flush to creep up Harry’s neck as Louis kisses him once more for luck.

“What?” he asks as Harry stands up straight. “Your face is red as a Donny kit.”

“Nothing,” Harry says, smiling as he shakes his head.

“Well, you’re cute.”

“Oh yeah? You’re cuter.”

“If you don’t stop,” Niall says from the kitchen, pointing a spatula at them warningly, “I’m going to spit in your food.”

“Niall, why must you be so hideously grotesque?” Louis asks, sitting up and looking at him over the back of the couch.

Harry laughs as Niall throws a dishrag at Louis, dancing away from them to grab his phone and wallet, heading for the door. He twirls in the air, waving goodbye and blowing Louis one kiss, then another, before he’s out the door in a whirlwind of glitter and the sound of wind chimes.

* * *

Harry and his mum, Anne, meet at a café she suggested. When she sits down, it’s in a cloud of sandalwood and cherry blossoms, her hair done up in a handful of different braids, interspersed with feathers and beads shaped like shells. She palms a handful of them to Harry as soon as they’re both sitting. “I found these the other day, they’re for you,” she says, smiling the same smile that both Harry and Gemma inherited along with their penchant for witchcraft and its arts. “How are you, love? You look wonderful.”

As Harry pockets the beads, she places her palm flat against his. “Hmm. Quite a few new developments in your life?”

Harry nods excitedly. “I have some questions but first I have to tell you: I have a boyfriend!”

Her eyes go wide. “You do?”

“Yes! It’s been so hard not to tell everyone I see.” Harry laughs, bouncing in his chair. “We’ve been kind of together for a while now? But we only decided on it just now. To be in a relationship.”

“Does that mean he’s here with you, right now?”

“Yeah! We came up to meet a friend of ours, we’re here for the weekend.”

“And you didn’t bring him? Cheek.”

“You’re kidding, right? One witch in his life is enough right now.”

They order their drinks quickly, and while the server walks away, Anne stares at him. “You told him?”

Harry nods. “He understands. He understands all of it, everything. I know it sounds weird, but he _gets_ me, Mum.”

“Oh, babe, it’s not weird at all.” She squeezes his hand. “Harry, I’m so happy for you. This is everything I’ve ever wanted for you, to be happy and healthy.”

“Me too. I can’t wait for you to meet him, Mum, you’re gonna love him.” He does a quick run-down of who Louis is—messy, beautiful, clever, careful, fond. He talks about his love for football, his appreciation of Harry’s terrible jokes, how smart and funny he is, how much he _knows_ and has _seen_. And he wants to tell her about the vampirism—but he just can’t, not yet. The information is still too new. He can’t just spring BOYFRIEND on his darling mum and follow it up with VAMPIRE twenty minutes later.

They have their coffee and tea, chatting over little cakes about how things are back home, how Gemma’s doing lately, and what sorts of shenanigans Harry and his flatmates get up to. Harry unfortunately has to talk about Zayn, which still stings, he has to admit, but his mum always knows the right thing to say. “This is just one chapter in the book, you know?” she says, sipping her coffee. “It’s not over yet, not as long as you keep writing it. He'll always be there for you as long as you want him. As long as you  _let_ him." 

Harry nods. Zayn will always be his first best friend, the first person who accepted him outside his own family, the first one to love him unconditionally. He'll always remember that, and always love him for it, no matter where life takes them. 

“So I have a few questions for you,” Harry starts after half an hour of chit-chat. “First, I was looking into making a…well, a wolfsbane potion.”

“A wolfsbane potion? For…” She trails off, waiting. “Because I know you’re not a werewolf.”

“For…science?” he says, wincing. That seems to be his explanation for a lot of things lately. 

“Hm. Well, they are notoriously difficult, but I think we could do it. Have you tried it?”

Harry nods. “I can’t get it to synthesize. It just goes flat every time. I can’t…" he flaps his hands uselessly, " _charge_ it, you know?"

“Yeah, you need a certain level of magical aptitude in your ingredients. You want me to take a crack at it, love?”

“Thanks for the offer, but I really want to do it myself. Like, to prove I can? So I was wondering like if you thought of anything else I could try?”

“Lavender’s good for the calming effect,” she says, tapping her chin. Harry smiles. _Thanks, Louis_. “But the aptitude is low. You need something else to counterbalance it. And you’ve tried white willow bark, for the healing?” When Harry nods, she goes on again, listing off herbs and flowers to use. Harry writes them down, keeping notes of new things to try. It's going to be a  _long_ summer working in his lab down in the cellar. 

“And remember alcohol,” she reminds him. “Alcohol’s important as a base.”

“Any in particular?”

“Vodka works best.”

Harry writes that down, too. “Great! Thanks, Mum. I knew if anyone would be able to help, you would.”

“And you’re sure you’re not a werewolf? This is just for science?”

Harry laughs. “I’m not a werewolf, no. I would definitely tell you if I was a werewolf. Plus, I think you would be able to  _sens_ _e_ if I was a werewolf, so..." 

“Was there anything else? You do seem a little preoccupied, babe.”

This, despite all the trouble he's been having with Niall's potion, is the more difficult part of the day, the one he was both dreading and looking forward to—because he's not sure, at all, how this will turn out.  _Is my soul mine_ , he wonders,  _or was it someone else's before I was ever born_ _?_

“I’ve just been wondering lately…about our ancestors? Like do you know anything about that?”

Anne laughs. “Where is this coming from?”

“Just some past life feelings. You know? Feeling like I might have to something to learn from them. Lessons and all that."

"Okay, what would you like to know?"

"Like…do we have an ancestor who was a witch, maybe during the witch trials part of history?”

Anne ponders that for a little while, finishing off the last of her coffee. “Hmm. I think so, yeah. My great-great-great—however many it was—grandmother lived back then, I remember that. Do you know what time specifically?”

“Like, the 1640s? Thereabouts. I guess.” It’s hard to bring this up without mentioning what it’s in reference to. Harry just can’t get it out of his head. Zayn left and now all he has left is Niall and Louis and Liam, when they get to see him, and suddenly all these feelings are colliding, all these reservations, especially now that he and Louis are officially _together_. There’s so much to think about, so much he has to make sure is real and true about them.

“Yeah, okay, that sounds about right. My grandmother told me stories about her. She used to be the healing woman for their village. They would come to her when they needed guidance and poultices of herbs, things like that. She married a regular man who didn’t have magic and they had some children, but only one of them had magic. The others didn’t.”

“Did she have a son?”

“A couple, I think.”

“Was one of them named Edward?”

Anne shakes her head. “I’m sorry, love, I don’t know. But I’m sure there are records here. You could head over to that magic shop, where was that, over on Camden High Street? I’m sure the people there might know something. Lots of witches keep records of these things—for posterity, that sort of thing. To hold onto our history.”

“Cool, I’ll head over there.”

They spend the next half hour chatting and eating before Anne checks her watch and realizes she’s going to be late for a meeting she has to go to, so they hug their goodbyes out on the street, Harry breathing in the soft scent of his mum. She’s always been his person to turn to, and this time was no different. She kisses him on the cheek through the window of his cab and then he’s gone, waving goodbye out the back window like he’s leaving home for the first time all over again.

The magic shop she was talking about is called Graymalkin’s, and it seems to moonlight as a metaphysical place for the genuine as well as the ‘going through a phase’ lot, from the strange posters in the glass windows covered in _om_ symbols, Wiccan pentagrams, and advertisements for free palm readings with the purchase of any bundle of incense. There is an actual beaded curtain inside and some strange, mystical music is playing that sounds vaguely like throat-singing. Harry kind of loves it.

The woman who owns the place calls herself Hecate (which has Harry coughing into his fist just a little bit) and once Harry does a brief demonstration to prove himself, stirring the spoon in her cup of green tea without once touching it, she nods at him and beckons him with one gnarled finger to follow him behind the beaded curtain. Back there are stacked boxes filled with merchandise and the faint smell of marijuana; she brings him back through several rooms, into what looks like a dull office filled with filing cabinets, towers of file folders nearly taller than him scattered everywhere. 

She goes through a bookshelf of photo albums, pulling several out and blowing the dust off them. A thin layer of dust still remains when she dumps them in Harry’s hands. “There you are, love,” she says, smacking her hands together. “Put ’em back where you found ’em when you go.”

Some of the pages are stuck together, glued by time and dust. Some are moth-eaten and holey, and others are so worn that they’re crumbling, the writing smeared away and illegible. Harry flips through, looking at people’s family trees, at their old family photos in sepia tones, black and white, bearded men looking stern and women unsmiling, babies on their laps. He flips and flips, until he finally finds their family tree, put together by good ol’ great-great-aunt Delilah. He traces the lines back, all the way to the tiny, cramped handwriting of the 1600s—and there he is.

 _Edward Styles._ Father was William, who died of some illness; Mother was Margaret, the healer. Margaret’s name is marked with a star. _WITCH,_ it says. _TRYAL._ Harry frowns hard at that, wanting to smudge it away with his finger. _Some trial_.  Edward’s sisters and brother all have stars next to their names, too. They weren’t killed, of course, just Margaret and Edward.

“But you didn’t even have magic,” Harry whispers. Something very sad is living inside him, curling up in the pit of his stomach. Nobody deserves that, magic or not.

There are photos as far back as is possible of a handful of relatives Harry’s never heard of; he digs through them, wanting _more_ , wanting anything he can use. He finds a poster from the witch trials, pamphlets about “congress with Satan”, and finally—sketches. He can barely breathe as he looks at them. They’ve been miraculously preserved for how long it’s been and he can feel a trace of magic on them as he runs his fingers reverently down their surface. Some are of plants, with their anatomy labelled; others are of spells written down, so as not to be forgotten. _Dried thyme_ , one says. _Three spoons._  

Finally, at the bottom of the pile, are the sketches of people. They start out just as hands. Fingers overlapping, holding knives, wrists bare and bent. Then there are the faces. A laughing little girl. A woman who Harry imagines is Margaret, streaks in her hair and lines on her face, that magical twinkle in her eye. Girls and chickens and lovely flowers, drawn over and over and over.

And then there’s him. _Him._ The only thing Harry can think is, _His face is my face_. Edward is Harry’s ancestor. Edward’s blood is his blood.

There’s someone else with him in the sketch, someone who’s face is turned away, but Harry can still see his hair, his cheek, his chin, the edge of his smile, and the upturned point of his nose.

Harry can’t breathe. Because it’s _them_.

Suddenly, all of Louis’ hesitations about drinking his blood make absolute sense. Because every time he looks at Harry, he sees Edward. He sees his pain, he sees what happened to him, the unfairness of it all. He sees his own failure at not being able to save Edward from his fate. And if there’s anything Harry has learned about Louis, it’s that he’s protective, that he will do everything in his power to keep Harry safe. To keep him safe means to keep him away from Louis and what his influence might bring down on them. It’s like a candle burning to life in Harry’s mind, and he can’t help but feel sad and sorry for Louis all over again. He deserves the best of everything, but all his life, he’s had despair and fear and loneliness. _Well, I’m here now,_ he thinks to himself. _So all that’s gonna change._  

With his heart galloping in his chest, he puts a quick bubble around the pages and stuffs them into his bag. He closes the folder and puts it back, waving to “Hecate” and thanking her profusely as he goes. _I’ll bring them back,_ he promises himself solemnly. _But I’ve got to show them to someone first._

It’s dark by the time he gets back to Liam’s flat, and the others are still there. Niall’s on the phone with his parents in the back, on Liam’s porch, and Louis is almost exactly where Harry left him, except he’s out of his joggers and in dark skinny jeans and a white t-shirt, a maroon beanie covering his hair. He’s watching _Geordie Shore_ with a faint look of disgust which has Harry in hysterics for a full minute before he remembers what he’s got with him and what he knows now.

“Louis, _look_ ,” he says, sitting down on the couch beside Louis. He pulls his legs up, but puts them promptly back down on Harry’s lap when he can. “I found these at a shop I went to today!”

He quickly explains about witches—how they protect their own, how they have secret safe places hidden everywhere, how they document their history—and then he brings out the sketches. At first, Louis looks at him like he’s politely interested but otherwise has no idea what he’s talking about. And then he sees the hands. His eyes widen in recognition.

He sits up, excited. “Harry, these—these are my hands.”

“Are they?” Harry looks at them again, comparing. Sure enough, there’s the same slim fingers, the delicate wrist, the same lines cutting across his palm. “It _is_ you,” Harry breathes. “I thought they were—well, his.”

“His?” Louis frowns and then his entire face takes on an ethereal quality, going whiter than Harry thought possible, his eyes crystalline. “Do you mean…”

Harry hands him the sketches. “It’s him.”

Louis can’t speak for several minutes, looking at the sketches, touching them fondly. Harry can see the emotions in his eyes, the way the blue darkens to the color of the ocean, the way his hands tremble ever so slightly. “It feels like…” Louis manages, clearing his throat. “It feels like looking into a dream,” he says softly. “Like it’s something that happened to someone else, a lifetime ago.”

“It _was_ a lifetime ago,” Harry says, equally quiet. “It was a _few_ lifetimes ago.”

“It feels like yesterday, honestly. Like a blur. Like going to bed drunk and waking up hungover. It’s all something that happened to the person you were the day before, not who you are now.”

“Is that…” Harry sees him looking at the last sketch, at the two of them. “Lou, is that you, too?”

He nods. “His sister, Elizabeth—she was a great artist. She did all these. I agreed to model hands for her, because she had a hard time with them. A lot of people thought we were courting, because we used to spend so much time together, but I was in it for the art—and for Edward. He used to hang around and watch her. Said it was _soothing_.” He taps the last sketch. “She must’ve caught us when we weren’t looking one day.” He shakes his head. “I’d forgotten how my face looks, what little of it you can see. I’d forgotten what _he_ looked like, too, nearly—until I met you.” 

Harry sucks in a breath. How is he supposed to say this without hurting Louis’ feelings? If he could, he would just say nothing at all, but he made a promise to himself. _No more lying_ , he tells himself, biting his lip. _No more hiding._

“Louis, I…I brought these with me to show them to you, to share them with you. But I found a family tree, and my mother is a descendant of Elizabeth’s. Edward, he…” He shakes his head. “Louis, I’m not _him._  This proves it for sure. I’m me. I'm my own soul, my own person. You understand that, right?”

Louis drops the sketch, staring at Harry. “Harold. _Of course_ I understand that! I—I can’t believe you—I never once thought you might be him! You _reminded_ me of him, certainly, but I never imagined you to be his...rebirth or something. Do you—you don’t think that’s why I care about you, do you? Because that’s not it at all.”

Harry looks away, shrugging. He had to be sure—he has to know.

Louis shakes his head more emphatically than before. “Harry, _no_. I care about you because you hit me with a stuffed pumpkin when we first met and it was the cutest thing I’d ever seen. I care about you because you’re beautiful, inside and out, you’re witty and smart and care so deeply for every living thing around you that it makes you _glow_. I care about you because you made me laugh. You brought a light to my life that hadn’t existed in decades of the dark. You made me feel _alive_ for the first time in so many years that I almost forgot I was dead. You made me believe I could be someone better, someone more than who I was, that I could forgive. You made me _feel_ and I…” He stops briefly, but he can’t falter, not now. “…and I love you, to be perfectly honest. I have since the first time I kissed you at that Halloween fair, and I will until I’m dust at the end of time.”

A smile slowly blooms on Harry's mouth.  _This_ is the most magical thing he’s ever heard in the entirety of his life. “You love me?”

“Utterly, inescapably, and ridiculously, yes.” Louis smiles suddenly, too. “Harry, you’re glowing.”

Harry looks down. Sure enough, his aura is a gleaming white with iridescent twinkles, shining brilliantly like the light of a star. _It’s not me,_ he thinks. _It’s you._ “Louis, I love you, too. I always have. I think—I think maybe we were made for each other. I know it may seem silly, but I honestly do. It’s why I was born, and why you were brought back. To right the wrongs of the past, and to make our _own_ future. And I never want to do anything else, forever.”

“You love me.” Louis laughs incredulously. “Stupidly?”

“Of course.”

“Good. I won’t accept anything less than the complete foolishness that is love.” He crooks a finger at Harry. “Come to me.”

That phrase makes Harry weak at the knees. Somehow, he manages to crawl closer, laying down half-on top of Louis. Louis cups his face in both hands and kisses him deeply, drawing him down like the power of the moon. Harry sighs, melting into him.

It’s a process. It’s still a lot for Harry to wrap his head around, that he eats blood, that he has to take the life force of other creatures to survive, that he's over _one thousand_ years old. But it’s a process they’re going to work through, because it’s who they are now, it’s their life together. They went from being a _you_ and _me_ to a single, all-encompassing _we_ —and that scares both of them, Harry figures, but it’s something he wants, something he’s been ready for. He wants this, with Louis. He wants his everything.

Louis runs his hand through Harry’s curls, brushing them through softly; Harry makes a noise in the back of his throat, closing his eyes. “The things I want to do to you, for you, with you… It’s staggering, this hold you have on me.”

Harry smiles, laying his head down against Louis’ chest. He can get used to the lack of a heartbeat; he’s got enough heart for the two of them. “I’ve put a spell on you,” he says, snickering as he opens his eyes.

Louis matches his expression, and this time Harry can see his sharpened canines poking into his bottom lip. “And now you’re mine,” he says softly.

* * *

That night, they dance like they’re about to die.

They go out to a pub first and every time Harry drinks, Louis asks if he’s okay because he's always so careful with Harry, and Harry says yes, the room is just starting to spin, and Louis’ spinning with him. That makes him smile every time. By the time they pile into a cab, they’re all a little drunk, Liam and Niall more so, Louis only a little because he’s chock full of blood from a few days before. Harry is _silly_ about it because he can’t take shots very well at all; he prefers the fruitier drinks much more, since thy actually taste good and his mouth is filled with the taste of lemons and strawberry. 

The club they go to is loud, the lights only blue and green, pulsing with every beat of the music. They have another round of drinks, but Harry can’t keep doing shots, so he lets Louis take his hand and lead him onto the dance floor, into the writhing crush of bodies. Louis holds his hips and they dance close, Harry’s large hands encircling his tiny waist, feeling the warmth of him through his thin t-shirt, tracing the planes of his shoulderblades and collarbone. Harry can taste the auras of everyone in the room, can feel his connecting with Louis’ with every brush of their bodies, and it sends his head whirling in a cloud of color and shine.

Louis leans in, talking against the shell of Harry’s ear to be heard over the thumping heartbeat of music. “We’d have to establish ground rules.”

Harry leans back, frowning quizzically. Were they having a conversation and Harry just forgot about it? “What?” he says.  

Louis grabs hold of his shirt, speaking against his neck again. “For drinking blood. We’d need ground rules. And also maybe a quick trial, so you know exactly what it is you’re getting into.”

Harry’s heartbeat leaps in time with the music. “Are—are you serious? You want to?”

Louis nods. “You’re right. You’re not him, you never have been and you never will be—and you just want to help me. Besides,” he shrugs, “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to taste you.”

Harry’s stomach swoops like he’s at the crest of a rollercoaster, about to go plunging down into absolute oblivion, the wind in his hair, a joyous scream on his lips. This is real, this is _happening_. Before he can properly react, Niall and Liam descend on them with whoops of joy as the song changes into one they love. Harry just catches a glimpse of Louis, eyes for Harry only, a grin sitting pretty on his mouth. Harry smiles back over Niall’s head, ignoring what he’s saying in favor of extending this moment for just a little bit longer, to keep Louis in his sights.

They drink and they dance, time seeming to slow around the four of them as they jump and writhe and laugh and hold onto one another to keep from falling. For the first time in a long time, it feels _normal_ , it feels like everything’s going to be okay again, like this is where they’re meant to be _again_. Zayn will always be there, like the space on a shelf for a beloved book that you let someone borrow, and just because they haven’t given it back yet doesn’t mean it won’t one day again be sitting in its proper place on your shelf. He still lingers in all things that they do. But that doesn’t mean they have to mourn the lack of his presence like he’s dead. They can still _live_ , and they can still love, and be a four-piece puzzle again, just like this.

“You know what?” Harry says, buzzed and exhilarated. Liam’s gone to the loo, and the three of them are waiting, still bouncing slightly in place. “We should ask Liam to move in with us.”

Niall stares at Harry like he’s just announced Christmas has come early.

“I mean, we don’t need the rent, since Louis’ loaded but—I dunno. It’d be nice to have him around.”

“A human,” Louis says, shaking his head. He looks like Harry’s just told him that he found a puppy he wants to keep. “What will we think of next?”

“ _I_ think it’s a great idea,” Niall says. Harry loves that both of them are supernatural; with their hearing, it doesn’t matter where they go, he never has to shout. “Liam’s a good guy, you know? He’d understand us.”

“Mm-hm. We’ll see.”

“Does that mean you agree?” Harry asks.

Louis throws his arms up. “Well, it seems I’m outnumbered!”

Harry and Niall exchange high-fives as Liam arrives, winding through the crowd. “What was all that about?” he asks, gesturing to the lingering grins.

“Nothing,” Harry says, smiling as slyly as he possibly can. “Just having a really good night, that’s all.”

“Me too. It’s always fun when you three pop up out of nowhere, just appearing at the drop of a hat. Like shadows, you are.”

“Like you wouldn’t believe, lad,” Louis mutters, but he’s right next to Harry and he hears it, flashing him a smile.

Niall and Liam go back out to the dancefloor, but Harry stays with Louis on the fringes of it, away from the crowd. He’s sure his hand is sweaty where Louis’ holding it, but if he minds, he gives no indication. “So,” he says, not looking at Louis, _trying_ not to be obvious, like this isn’t something he’s been wanting for ages. “When would this trial biting happen?”

“Whenever you want, love.” Louis tilts his head in Harry’s direction, looking at him through half-lidded eyes. “We could do it right now, if you wanted.”

“Really? You wouldn’t…I dunno, mind?”

“Mind eating, after not eating for days? No, I wouldn’t mind,” he says, laughing. His grip on Harry’s hand tightens the tiniest bit. “Besides, it’s you we’re talking about. I’ve been thinking about this since the day we met.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. Been dreaming about how you might taste.”

“Well, why don’t we?”

“You sure?” Louis peers at him closely. “That’s not just the drink talking?”

Harry shakes his head. “’Course not! I’m ready. Been wanting this, too. If you can believe that.”

Louis raises Harry’s hand to his face, turning it over so he can see his wrist. He presses his wrist to his mouth and inhales deeply, scenting the thin, veined skin there. “I can believe that,” he says, lowering his hand again. “You smell like you want it.”

 _Oh god_. “That obvious?”

“Transparent as a ghost,” Louis says, nodding. “But I like it. Saves me time having to figure you out. You’re just so…honest, Harry. So genuine. You know I love you for that, right?”

“I _didn’t_  know that actually, no.”

“Oh?” Louis grins absolutely wickedly. “Well, let me remind you. As long as you’re sure you want this now, that you don’t want to wait—”

“Now,” Harry says, nodding fervently. “Erm, please.”

Louis just smiles and pulls on Harry’s hand, leading him away, further into the club. They reach a back door painted black; he pushes it open, revealing a concrete landing and another set of steps up. Louis guides him that way, to another door, this one painted purple. It opens out into an alley on the street level, lit with one light extending from the building, their own personal halo. Someone’s spray-painted a faceless robed figure wearing a crown on the opposite building, its hands raised in supplication. Harry can’t stop looking at it, even as Louis gently pushes him back against the wall.

“This is going to hurt,” he says. “I’ll do ten seconds. Then, after, if you don’t like it, that’s it. We’ll pretend like this never happened and I won’t ever do it again.”

“But if I decide I like it? Or that I want to do it anyway?”

“I don’t want you to do it unless you like it. I don’t want you suffering in silence on my part, okay?”

Harry nods. “But if I like it?”

“Then we’ll discuss what that means later. Maybe tomorrow.” Suddenly Louis smiles, frowning thoughtfully. “Hm. I wonder if the alcohol in your blood will get me tipsy?”

Harry giggles. “Can we find out?”

“Of course. Tell me if you want me to stop and I will, no questions asked.” Harry nods and Louis holds Harry’s chin softly, turning his head to the left to give him access to his neck. He holds Harry’s hips, standing on his tiptoes to kiss Harry’s neck, marking the spot where he wants to bite. “Ready?” he whispers.

Harry nods again, biting his lip. He’s not sure what to expect. “And this won’t…turn me, right?”

“Nope. Only if you drink from me right after.”

“Okay." He closes his eyes. "Do it.”

He feels Louis’ fingers, warm, on his throat. “Take a deep breath, love.”

Harry does as he’s told, inhaling deeply for several seconds—and then, just as he’s releasing, there’s a sharp pain at his neck. He gasps, a broken mewl pushing forth out of his mouth against his will at the blinding heat, the pressure of Louis’ fangs digging in. His fingers grip Louis’ shoulders, as if to push him away, but he doesn’t, just flexes his fingers, holding onto Louis as tightly as he can to keep himself from screaming. The fangs drag back out, slowly, as though Louis is hesitating, afraid to hurt Harry anymore. 

His mouth fairly  _pops_ away from Harry's neck, the fangs pulling free. "Oh my  _god_ ," Louis says, pressing his knee in between Harry's legs, the entirety of his body flush against Harry. "You taste like..." He mutters something in what sounds like French, leaning his forehead against Harry's shoulder. The air is cold despite the heat on Harry's neck, and he can feel a slow trickle of blood moving down his skin. 

"Louis?"

"You taste like  _sunshine_ ," Louis gasps, laughing. "You're so fucking good, babe. Can I—?"

Harry nods tensely. "Do it."

Louis pushes back up on his tiptoes and presses his mouth to the leaking wound on Harry's neck. With his fangs scraping, he begins to suck—and Harry feels as though he's fallen into a black hole. Harry’s eyes roll back in his head. His body is a nuclear site in the desert, all silence and bright light, then utter devastation, nothing left. His skin bursts into a beam of pure irradiated sunlight, hot blades searing him inside and out, and it feels like he’s giving birth to lava, to lightning and liquid nitrogen. Everything goes silent except for his own heartbeat, rabbiting in his ears, and the answering heartbeat of  _Louis_ , who is dead but is living  _through_ him. Every inch of him warms, growing hotter and hotter, faster and faster, like a star plummeting through the heavens, and he can  _feel_ the racing of his blood, answering the call of Louis' boundless soul. 

And just like that, it's a burst of pleasure, of sunlight and flowers on a windy day, and it's sex under moonlight, and it's swimming in a crystalline lake on the hottest day of the year, and it's holding hands in the club, and it's that first kiss, pressed up against the car, Louis' taste in his mouth and he's reliving it all right now all at once, as though he's zooming through time, from the start of it all to this very moment, every touch, every press, every lingering look, and it's happiness and love and  _everything_.  _  
_

Harry leans his head back against the brick wall, opening his eyes to see the stars wheeling overhead, spinning in the sky, and he just grips Louis tighter, holds him close for that infinite ten seconds as the core of his being is broken open and he's spirited away, to a place he never knew existed and couldn't have ever dreamed to life, to a place that is just two heartbeats, two hands, no longer a _me_ and a  _you_ , but a single, all-encompassing  _we_. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -i made up all that shit about vampire biology, idk how any of it works lmao

**Author's Note:**

> -i don't know latin, i literally just google everything and hope it's right lmao  
> -[this](http://www.ata-tarot.com/resource/cards/) is a pretty neat place to read up on the meanings of certain tarot cards
> 
> i'm on [tumblr](http://www.g-uttertrash.tumblr.com/) too but not very often (i'm trying to get better at it)


End file.
